So, then—
by justbecauseofthis
Summary: Over the past 2 years, Mikasa and Armin have grown estranged from their childhood friend. With a new girlfriend, new friends, Eren Jaeger is a person they don't quite know. Senior year: With graduation around the corner, Eren disappears forever. Now Mikasa wonders if things could've been different. [modern day AU] Warnings: suicide, violence, mental illness, alternate timelines
1. Prologue

a/n: Snk characters aren't the same as their canon selves since it's a different setting.

* * *

It was like dreaming. Floating close. Just outside her body. Among the rest of the student body, Mikasa sat vague on the bleachers, floating just above herself. AC wailed through the vents, blasting their heat-saturated skin. Their clothes fell cold. She shook. It wasn't from the AC. Her left eardrum was throbbing. It was Monday, February 20th, 8:23 AM. The principal's voice came from very far away: a woman with black pants, short hair; a microphone planted at the center of the gymnasium, miniscule, being stared at by every student present, pinned under scrutiny like a shiny seed in a petri dish.

"Each individual has been affected, and each individual has been affected differently. At our school, we have experienced, well-qualified counselors. Please, if you feel the need to speak to someone, about anything at all, don't hesitate to—"

Mikasa cupped a palm over her ear and heard the ocean. The throb continued as blood wormed through her cochlea. It felt like dreaming. An invisible eye of attention bore down on her. Like a downward flare of hot, exposing light. Chasing her back into the very farthest distance of herself. She was the one inside the petri dish now. She shook. It was from the AC this time.

Grief had infected Lake Valley High School. They were all struck by varying degrees of it, different versions even. Some were stunned, merely, by association, passersby of sudden mortality, passively moving through a rural community of grief and loss. Someone around them was now unexpectedly and inconceivably dead. Someone who, by all accounts, should not be dead. No matter where their age fell, fourteen, nineteen, somewhere in between, death was only a far-off myth, a shelved manifest destiny that none of them wanted to, or even needed to, reconcile with their delusions of grandeur until years from now because people didn't die in high school, and it was easy not to. But here it was. Confronting them. And they were utterly unprepared and ill-equipped.

How did it happen?

The mother had found him hanging inside his closet.

Why did it happen?

Not even the mother could say. For all they knew, he was smart, sociable, athletic. And to the mundane platitudes of _how are you?:_ he always responded impeccably, always said he was good, doing just fine. He seemed a little tired, but everyone was a little tired. He never expressed such—_illness_. He had had a girlfriend whom he broke up with, when was it?, barely two months ago, about. A cordial agreement, everybody thought. A pretty girl, with a gush of kinky black curls. Bright-skinned, like he was. She didn't come to school today, and she—_You don't reckon she'd . . .? No, no, I don't think so. She's just mourning. Give her some time._—still had his hoodie, which she sobbed into. A pair of his gym shorts, which she slept in.

He was loved.

So, then—

School went on. Students funneled out of the gymnasium, carrying a host of phone numbers they'd never use. The bell rang. They sifted away, distilling, recalibrated to the normal. Their footsteps trundled down the invisible iron rails of everydayness. Gossip still circulated. The talking, of course, would never change; speech was undeviating and machinelike in its homing quality. —_she cheated on —ortion? did he know?—i heard that —getting dick from —you're an ass —why should we care? he chose —they're idolizing him.— little bitch, selfish coward —everybody wants to die sometimes. did he think he was special? —fuck him. fuck this school — _

Life shifted horizontally. Less of an earthquake and more of a transformative slide without the drama of natural disasters. It was quieter. Had more subtlety. The days were a flexible river, bending around and filling in where he once was, where he once had been, that evacuated role of student, of friend, of boyfriend, of classmate, etc. to continue its track, undiverted, straight into tomorrow, and the next day, and the next. Earth adapted that way. Didn't even pause. Barely resisted. That's how the world adjusted to dead people, too.

His lack of presence was most patent in English class. Right when Mrs. Ral's tears would stop, they would start flowing again. After sinking into her chair, she let her face flow while the class sat, stiffly, and waited for time and the iron rails to carry them into sixth period. 3:00 PM came. Swim practice was cancelled so they went home and the sun went away and they ate dinner and washed up and went to bed. Varying degrees of anxiety and grief deterred sleep that night. The moon shined high. Lights dulled some stars. They all lied in bed thinking about it. It didn't matter if they knew him or not.

In the gated suburban neighborhood where golf courses sprawled and people in their sixties, their seventies, wheeled around in their electric carts, the Jaeger household rose in its two stories and red brick and red door. Carla and Grisha couldn't sleep, they couldn't even eat because their house was empty, desolate in all of its two stories. Nothing but vast echoes and the immutable silence of bereavement because Eren Jaeger, their son, was dead. It left the mother and the father in agonizing unanswerable perpetual suspense: He was loved. So, then—

Why?

The Beginning

Sitting in the seat in front of her, Eren had his head down again. And Mikasa Ackerman could see the thick elastic band of his underwear bunching out of his jeans. They slung loose, below his _natural_ waist, as the teachers would call it. Visible too: a stripe of his back and the lowest bulging knob of his spine where his shirt had hiked up when his arms drew over the desk to pillow his head. For fifteen minutes now, he had been sitting, face-down.

"Will someone wake Eren up?"

Mikasa reached her pencil forward. She rapped him on the shoulder. The cords in his neck stirred. He lifted his head and twisted his face. Violated sleep pulsed through his eyes. With the end of her pencil, Mikasa pinpointed the teacher. He turned back around.

He was still slouched over his desk with the stringy muscles of his neck flexing and unflexing, holding his head up. Beneath his thatch of dark hair, those strings continued to rise and sink, even though his head didn't move at all. It was as if a lot of movement was happening inside of Eren without it happening outside of him. The teacher finished scraping her pen. She pattered over in her flat rubber shoes and slid the detention slip onto his desk.

"I don't imagine Coach Hannes will be very happy to hear about your conduct, Eren." Eren took the slip. He read over it through myopic watery eyes. "You can go see the dean now too while you're at it and get those sagging pants sorted out."

"Yes ma'am," he said. He came from a Southern family and in Southern families, 'yes ma'am' and 'yes sir' were drummed into the lexicon at the beginning of a child's first language acquisition.

Another Southern thing: At the time of his eighth birthday, Mikasa first saw the way Eren cowered at the leathered _clap_ of men's belts. A lot of Southern fathers, she'd been told, whipped their sons with belts. A generationally recycled conditioning which imposed fear and humiliation to train boys what not to do and maybe it was the boyhood fear that seeded the adult aggression, which then perpetuated the conditioning, recycling it into the next generations forward. Except in the Jaeger family, it had skipped a generation because Eren was the first boy on the maternal side since Raymond, and so it wasn't the father who ripped the belt from his jeans and popped it between the rippling jerk of his wrists. _Sorry, PawPaw, sir_. And Mikasa had learned that day that in some families, boys were whipped with leather belts, and so she felt bad for them.

Eren rose and fished up his backpack and slung it over his shoulder, doing all three motions in one, and walked in a shuffling drowse to the front of the class. Thirty-two pairs of eyes watched him. Another office visit. The third since last Tuesday. His shoes had peeling flakes of deterioration and a gray smear of dirt. Since when? Mikasa thought. He used to neurotically doctor his shoes at even the faintest squint of an insult. It was annoying, if not a little materialistic, she had told him.

Maybe that was the first sign.

At lunch, the regulars occupied their habituated picnic table. Company included: Mikasa, Armin, Jean, Connie, and Sasha. They ate outside, under the flaring Florida sun.

It wasn't pleasant coastal Florida, but the brown midline of peninsula choked by cow pastures and orange groves, where heat dazzled sidewalks and asphalt roads warbled under an illusion of water puddles. Oak trees put shade over them, but the atmosphere was still stifling with landlocked heat and no breeze to assuage it. While they ate, black birds ruffled over their heads and flapped by, which at times ran a bit of a splash risk.

Freshman year, Eren had been the one to make this picnic table their lunchtime habitat. Most people respected each other's habits and didn't impose. But it was senior year now. And Eren sat with his girlfriend, Noralis. A cheerleader. Short, but not small, with a soft tummy and robust thighs. They had claimed a purple diamond-latticed bench. Side-by-side they sat. Eren's arms sprawled the length of the backrest, his face uplifted. The sun fell on his eyebrows, his eyelids. His throat curved. Next to him, Noralis sat, stroking his leg—the tips of her fingernails were painted gold—talking, not caring whether he listened.

"Hey, Armin," Mikasa said. "Do you want to come over this weekend and watch a movie with me?"

"Sure."

"I think I'll ask Eren, too."

"Really? When's the last time you even talked to him?"

"I don't know. But I miss him. Don't you?"

"Yeah, I guess?"

"You guess?"

"I'm not sure if we're really friends anymore. I don't know if I know who he is anymore."

"What?" Mikasa stared across the table. "No matter what, we're still friends. We could go without seeing each other for years. We're still going to be friends."

Armin looked at her. "I don't know if he feels the same."

"He does. We've been friends since third grade."

"He has a girlfriend."

"Yeah, so?"

Armin shrugged. "I don't have anything against Eren. It just feels distant, that's all. Like he's moved on."

"It sounds like you've moved on."

"I don't think about it much."

"You don't care about him anymore, is that what you're saying?"

"No, that's not what I'm saying."

"If he disappeared right now—"

"That's not what I'm saying." They fell quiet. Armin flicked his glasses up his nose. "You're getting a little carried away. I didn't mean it like that. I was just saying. Sometimes people grow apart. It happens. It's normal. It doesn't mean I've stopped caring, or that I'll ever stop caring."

She said: "Well," and couldn't think of how to follow it up. She was aware she felt what she wanted to say, but she couldn't find the words to say it.

The bell was to ring soon. Sasha and Connie annihilated Mikasa's leftovers with the nuclear stomach fortitude of teamwork. Armin asked why she bought school lunches every day if she wasn't going to eat them. She said that each day she speculated she might. Most lunches began with a dose of optimism. Most lunches ended anticlimactically. —_What about bringing your lunch?_ —No, thanks. —_You're going to starve yourself._ —Probably.

They threw out their Styrofoam trays. Her milk box tumbled down a black plastic garbage abyss, hitting bottom with a blunt sound. Armin and other company disassembled. Mikasa went to the south side of school. All students began to drift down their respective arteries in a trooping undead slumber. The Lake Valley High circulatory system. They had four and a half minutes to get to class.

Down one of the main sidewalks, on the West side of school, past the two vestibules of Buildings 3 and 4, and between two metal pillars that braced an outdoor awning, Mikasa's circuit converged where it almost always did at approx. 1:13 Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays with Eren Jaeger's. Some days they waved to each other. Some days they didn't. Some days they actively ignored each other. This was happening more lately.

At some point, a point that couldn't be identified, in an indistinct overlay of changing phases, Eren began to float like a speck of spotty vision, drifting illusorily after rubbing your eyes. Manifesting, not once he'd been seen, but appearing sometime after you remembered you were looking directly at him. He slowly floated up to the retina that way, concentrating the more time and effort you spent trying to remember to see him, materializing minutes after your eyes had already fallen on him posted against the background like a life-size cut-out of a cardboard persona. By that time, though, he would begin to submerge again. Sink away. Mikasa had to catch him before he disappeared.

His messy thatch of dark hair nodded in the nodding surf of heads. He was going south too, toward Building 1, integrated in the flow ahead of her. Mikasa kicked up her heels and upped her pace. When she trickled through the gaps, pouring in behind him, she couldn't stop her eyes from dropping to the seat of his pants. A plastic zip-tie clamped any denim slackage nonexistent. Malicious adults in the front office probably thought it was funny, seeing him toddle around with that thick denim seam jammed up his butt.

She lifted her fingers, saying, "Why didn't you just wear a belt?" and clasped him by the bicep. The muscle was warm, sun-bathed when it filled her hand. He turned.

"Mikasa." He sounded surprised. He looked surprised. He smelled like hot, outdoor hair.

"Hi."

"How you been?" he said, and she wondered how, when, why, their friendship had declined to this type of surface-level shallowness, where they asked each other platitudes—and worse, with all good intentions.

Her answer was candid. Maybe too candid for their apparent platitudes. "I've been thinking about you," she said. "Reminiscing."

"Oh, yeah?" His lips got ready to smile.

"Yeah." She wanted to know if he reminisced. His lips were still getting ready. "Anyway, do you want to come over this weekend and watch a movie with me and Armin? I'll make buffalo dip. We can even talk trash about Jean if you want."

Eren's mouth was closed, ready to smile but not ready to laugh. It wasn't until that moment, when his eyes suddenly gained more depths, that Mikasa realized those depths had been flattened; that they'd been absent; that they'd been artificial. She hadn't noticed when she first approached. It had gone by her undetected and so now she knew that it'd been much too long since they'd last spoken. "You have good timing," he said.

"Really?"

"Yeah. And I don't know how you do it."

"Do what?"

"It's hard to explain. But you're good at it." Then he opened his arms. "I know you don't like hugs but," and Yes, she didn't like hugs, but she put herself inside his arms and they closed around her and his palms contained her lower back. He drew her in, comprehensively, into a time reversal, and she reverted, growing out of age, or growing back into it.

Eren Jaeger. Her best friend. Her first friend. The beginning of childhood, and the end of it.

_End?_ she thought. Then she wondered why she thought what she just thought, and then she wondered if it made her weird to wonder about why she thought her own thoughts. Then she stopped thinking the thoughts altogether, letting Eren hold her silently in his arms.

His hands were comprehensive and he buried her in his chest. She felt his heartbeat. The living. The thumping thud. An impermanent beat and pause.

It wasn't that she hated hugs. It was that she hated hugging boys. She never knew what they wanted. They'd crowd her up into the cups of their bodies, mold her out of shape so she felt like she was pouring out, being unpacked outside herself. But with Eren it was different. She trusted his sincerity. She suspected hugs from boys. She did not suspect Eren. There was no need to. He wasn't interrogative that way.

The hug evolved into an embrace—then it prolonged. This was not distrust. This was not self-made paranoia. Eren was never interrogative with her, though his arms were wrapped around her with too much weight, too much pull, encompassing her too thoroughly, his face resting on her shoulder. And still she didn't suspect him because Eren was Eren was Eren. Time went on, and it was too long. They were going to be late to class. A transformation was occurring. The heartbeat began to march like a line of combat-outfitted soldiers. Mikasa's eardrum wormed with blood.

"Are you okay?" Mikasa lifted her face.

"Yeah?" Eren said it like a question and sank his neck back to look down at her, down his nose-bridge, where her head was.

"Are you sure?" she said.

"Yeah, definitely. Are you okay?" He let go. She tugged her earlobe, massaging the little knotted cartilage where her piercings were.

"Yeah," she said.

"This weekend. If you make the dip, I'll bring the Tostitos." He smiled. "I'll text you, okay?"

"Okay."

"And also . . ." His eyes contained some depth still. "Thanks."

"For what?"

"For being you."

She cringed. She was embarrassed.

"_Nerd_," he added. Then Mikasa felt better, and she smiled. He palmed the door to Building 1 open and, letting her pass, they went together inside the hall and walked down streaked linoleum.

Mrs. Ral stood up against her classroom door, propping it open with the little rubber heels of her crocodile-skin shoes. Fluorescence blew across the shiny toes. When she saw Eren approaching, she jabbed her index finger and summoned him with a stringent finger-curl. Eren grabbed his backpack straps. He shut his eyes, opened them.

As though he'd fallen asleep standing upright, his eyeballs had turned to glass. Mikasa went through the door and took her seat and watched Mrs. Ral walk to her desk with Eren tailing, slow and sleeping with his opened glass eyes, close behind her.

The teacher desk rattled with a shutting drawer. When Mrs. Ral's hand lifted, her fingers were knuckled through a pair of blue polka-dot scissors. She leaned in, Eren didn't move, and she speared the scissors through the zip-tie loop. At six foot two, Eren dwarfed Mrs. Ral.

"I don't know why they have to do it like this. It's, it's," she said, and huffed, and lost what she was going to say: "And I won't have any of my students being uncomfortable in my classroom." The scissor blades cracked the zip-tie open. His jeans breathed again. From her rattling metal desk drawer, Mrs. Ral procured another plastic tie. "Fix it. Make it comfortable but corrective. Understand? And don't you go getting me into trouble for this, now, Mr. Jaeger."

"Yes ma'am. Thank you." The bell rang. She patted his back when he turned. Her puffy sleeve fell, sheer, off her arm. Then she faced the rows of desks and ejected her teacher voice down the lines of students.

Off to the side, Eren applied the zip-tie. Once it was fastened, he slid down into his seat and for about ten minutes, he even devoted some polite attention to Mrs. Ral. He blinked his sleeping-glass eyes then drew his arms over the desk and dropped his face upon them.


	2. Saturday

a/n: This story is also sci-fi and sometimes supernatural-ish.

* * *

Saturday

Mikasa woke up late and watched cartoons. Her bedroom blinds were shut. A bar of morning sunlight flattened to her ceiling and slid slowly sideways. Netflix asked if she wanted to continue watching. Yes, she wanted to continue watching. She texted Eren first:

_Hey, does 8 work for you?_

She sent it at 1 PM. Eren replied at 4 PM:

_Perfect. I'll bring chips._

He sent a thumbs up.

Eren knocked on her door at 8:13 PM. He walked in without waiting to be let in. By then, Armin was there too: He and Mikasa were already on the living room couch, invested in violent Nintendo combat: Ganondorf v. Mario in Super Smash Bros.

Eren stood, unsure of himself, carrying a party-sized bag of Tostitos. He was an odd stranger who'd found himself accidentally inside the Ackerman household. An incompatible peg thrust into the wrong space. A square in a circle, a circle in a square. He stood with a straight spine, as if a wire were screwed into his vertebrae at one end, attached to the ceiling at the other, suspended, his toes ghosting the floor.

Once Mikasa connected a third controller, stuffing it into Eren's hands, he sank down and was taken into the couch and the cushions molded the oddness out of him, the strangeness. He began to remember how to be with Mikasa. He began to remember how to be with Armin. They began to remember how to be with each other. And it was very easy, being with each other and remembering how to do it. So easy that they forgot about the movie. So easy that Mikasa forgot about remembering February and the New Year. It was only September now. Time was theirs. They leaned forward, intent, controllers clicking erratically in their hands. On screen, the characters brawled, voicing their efforts, damage percentages rising. Spices from the buffalo dip brought water to their nostrils.

"Eat it," Mikasa said, and assaulted Eren with a string of haphazard combos.

"You freaking scrub," Eren said. "Wait, wait, wait—" He launched off screen.

"Get out of here with that," said Armin. "You're trash. Absolute trash."

"Why's Meta Knight so overpowered?"

"He's not. You're just trash, Eren. Absolute trash."

"Uh-huh, yeah, okay." Eren respawned at the top of the screen and dropped to the stadium. He attacked Armin. Armin's character fell, struggled, and finally plummeted to his virtual death. "Daddy's back," Eren said. "Who's trash, huh? Who's trash?"

Mikasa swiveled her thumbs, "You are," and targeted Eren again.

"Wait, wait, wait—" He launched off screen again. "I hate Meta Knight. He's annoying as hell."

"You're annoying," Mikasa said.

"You're annoying-_er_." Eren rammed her with his shoulder. She jolted sideways, her eyes never tearing away from the TV. Eren was tight up against her, squashing her between the couch's armrest and his side. She jabbed her elbow into his ribs.

Six months from now, into the New Year, in the third week of February, Mikasa would think back on this day and many other days, and wonder: Why hadn't she looked away from the TV?

Memories began to resurrect. Before. After: So, then—

She investigated her remembering. Searching for answers. Maybe there was one here, on this couch, in front of this TV—_if only she had looked_—so that she could remember, so that she would know—the blood in her ear spiraled down the infinite tunnel-thought of _if only_. What did he say? how did he sound?

She clapped a hand to the side of her head.

"Are you okay, Mikasa?" said Eren.

"Yeah, it's fine," she said. "I've been getting this ear ache." She squinted.

"Maybe you have an ear infection," Armin said. "You should see a doctor."

"Could just be a mountain of ear wax," said Eren.

"What? No." Mikasa rammed Eren's shoulder. Their skeletons crashed and rattled. "I clean my ears, stupid."

"_You're_ stupid."

Mikasa concentrated on the TV screen. Eren was sitting tight against her in an old Nike T-shirt. She wouldn't remember that. Not the Nike T-Shirt, nor the proximity. How she could feel the downy of his arm-hair buzzing against her skin. She'd forget about the veins that snaked over his wrists too. She'd forget that he smelled like he'd been sleeping for a long long time. Submerged in his bed. Entirely bathed, mummified, wrapped inside his own flesh and body. Buried. Not in the earth. But buried in a grave dug miles deep inside himself. _—Are you okay? —Yeah, definitely._ Memories don't resurrect the dead. Memories don't even preserve them.

Eren was sinking away again, flipping through the rows of playable characters. "Are you guys busy next Saturday?" he said. He ruminated on Pikachu. He continued flipping through the rows.

Eren was fading.

"I'm not," Mikasa said, remembering. Forgetting: Eren Jaeger was found dead, hanging inside his closet. The Mikasa of before, of then, of now, could only sit there, disremembering Eren's sad, sleepy smell; his veiny wrists as it was happening right in front of her. The moment it happens is the moment it begins to turn into memory, is the moment it begins to be forgotten. All occurring instantaneously: the happening, the remembering, the forgetting.

Mikasa selected Meta Knight.

"I hate you." Eren chose Captain Falcon. The announcer came on. A count-off flashed on the screen. Battle music started to play. Eren said, "Next Saturday is Cassandra Acosta's birthday party." He was dissolving beneath the tides of imperfect human memory. A faint boiling voice drowning deep. "Would you want to go with me?"

"I don't know who that is."

"You don't need to know who she is. I'm inviting you."

"What about your girlfriend?" Mikasa was focused on her character, focused on her fingers, her thumbs, mashing the buttons quicker than her brain could register a thought. Not thinking about Eren or his diminishing voice, his dimming presence, the elusive life of Eren Jaeger, washed away under a rising obliterating sea.

"Actually, Cassie's her—"

Saturday (in another time)

Mikasa's phone was silent. No notifications flagged down her attention. Her blinds let in slats of sunlight and the early morning scorched her room. Pencils were fanned across the hardwood floor. She began working on her Art I project. Due: September 17. She had two weeks.

She recreated an image from National Geographic on large gridded paper. She multitasked, waiting for Eren's text. For hours, she worked. She waited.

Light glittered sand granules sprinkling her floorboards. She retrieved the vacuum and commanded the machine, purring, across her room. In a warm hum, spinning bristles and coils sucked dirt and dust from her floor. At 3 PM, she went to the grocery store. At 4 PM, she went to Michael's. By 7 PM, a lightly-penciled orangutan stared out of large white paper.

Armin texted: _omw_.

Delivered at 7:48 PM.

Mikasa took a bite of a pizza slice. Cheese grease squished under her fingers. Armin's message ballooned on her phone, unchecked. Luxuriously, Mikasa chewed and took another bite. Saliva gushed and wetted the grease clump. Her throat muscles eagerly pulled it down and she licked her lips. The rest of the pizza slice, unfinished, flopped to the bottom of the garbage bin like a limp fish.

A black hoodie inflated around her. Mikasa zipped it up, tugged the hood over her hair.

When Armin arrived at 8 PM, asking: "Is Eren coming?" it was dark outside, and Eren hadn't texted, and Mikasa hadn't either. Armin wore shapeless blue jeans and a striped polo. His hair was damp.

"He said he was going to text me but never did." Pizza grease blazed Mikasa's gastrointestinal tract. "I'll try calling him," she said.

She reached her phone out of her back pocket and opened her contacts. The names fell in front of her eyes. They scrolled fast, blurring. The H and I names flew to the top of the screen. The names slowed. At the J's, she paused. Filtered one by one, past her eyes, searching for it. No. No. No. The K names emerged. _Jaeger _was nowhere in the list. She backtracked to the E's. Mikasa's finger swept up the screen. Name after name went by, the alphabetical list rolling, blurring past her eyes. The name was elusive, evading her with each swipe.

Letter by letter, now. Typing. Search: _E-R-E_—

At last, wedged between Jacob J. and Javan was _Eren Jaeger_. Her finger tapped. The speaker buzzed in her ear. A tone rang and paused, rang and paused, three times. A female voice told her the call was being forwarded to an automated voice messaging—

She slid the phone into her back pocket.

"Guess he's not coming." Armin propped himself against the wall and twisted his sneakers off.

"Let's swing by his house," Mikasa said.

"He's probably busy doing something with Noralis."

"Let's go see."

"He's probably not even there." Next to his evacuated shoes, Armin stood in cotton white socks. Pale yellow patches protected his toes. Settled where he was, Armin didn't move, with no intention of moving.

Mikasa grinded her Chucks on. "Let's just see. It won't take long."

She opened the door a crack. Insects surged toward the inch of light. Outside, crickets sawed neighborhood lawns. Armin was still settled where he was.

"Do you even want to see Eren?" Mikasa fought to keep the insects back.

"I guess. If he's actually home." Armin bent down and undid the shoe laces and crammed his feet in. He redid the laces. He caught his glasses on the tip of his nose and shoved them up against his face. "I've stopped holding Eren to any expectations," he said. "If I dropped dead tomorrow, he'd probably flake on my funeral." They went out.

The night was warm. Frogs belched from retention ponds and mosquitoes whirred above sluggish water half-filling neighborhood ditches. Crickets sawed, invisibly, from everywhere. In the driveway, Armin's car was still making cooling noises, clicking and wheezing into a short-lived peace.

Armin was not tall, but his legs were disproportionately long, and he had long uncoordinated strides. When he walked, his arms remained almost motionless at his sides.

Armin's car flashed, unlocked. The interior was immaculate. From the speakers sputtered FM radio, in and out of static. White-noise and ghost-singers sang two different songs of two different languages. Armin cut it off and wrenched his head around and backed out of the driveway. Tire-rubber flowed against asphalt.

Street lamps made yellow glowing puddles on the road and as they went, the houses flanking the street passed with different expressions, staring at one another across the way. They were awake with lights. Now and then shadow-figures passed behind windows.

"Remember when we used to ride our bikes around the neighborhood?" said Mikasa.

"Yeah," said Armin. "I was always jealous because you and Eren lived so close to each other."

Onto a cul-de-sac, Armin turned and rounded. A circle of houses smiled and laughed and glared at them. They rolled up onto a crying U-driveway. In front of them, headlights speared out, then swung and turned, beaming into a set of windows caged by wrought iron. In the glass, two blazing torches beamed back at them. The engine cut off. The torches blinked out. The car doors opened and clashed shut. From the sleeping golf course chirped invisible crickets.

"Remember when we ran through the golf courses, trick-or-treating?" Mikasa said.

"Yeah," said Armin. "It's a good thing we didn't get caught."

Two sets of footsteps clapped against an imitation stone walkway as Armin and Mikasa took the path leading to the red door. The Jaeger's lived comfortable lives. Mr. Jaeger was a doctor, private practice. Country club palms pierced the front lawn. Leafy vines climbed the colonial brick walls.

Pizza grease still blazed in Mikasa's gastrointestinal tract. "If his parents answer, can you talk?"

"It's just the Jaegers," Armin said.

"I know."

Armin stepped a little in front of Mikasa. His glasses didn't need to be adjusted, but he pushed them up his nose, dropped his fingers into his blue jean pockets. They stood, waiting in their bones and ignored the crickets, listening hard to the sounds inside. This was nothing like when they were nine years old. Palm branches collided, dryly shushing in the breeze.

Footsteps came from the other side. Porch lights blinked on and blasted down on them. They stood, exposed, spotlighted. Mikasa enveloped herself in her hood. Winged insects darted to the bulb. A blur moved behind the door's warbled glass window. The lock clicked and released. The door came open.

Armin and Mikasa had entered the future. They were time travelers, visitors from the past, shocked by this unexpected future. In front of them stood Mrs. Jaeger. A new Mrs. Jaeger, an aged Mrs. Jaeger. Not quite the Mrs. Jaeger from their time. Here, with wizened eyes and frays of treated, chemical-exhausted hair that fell, unraveled, down the sides of her face.

Mrs. Jaeger opened the door wider, amazed. The air conditioning flushed out onto the porch. "Armin?" she said. "Mikasa?" Mikasa put her hood down. This, them on her front porch, devastated Mrs. Jaeger with amazement.

To her they were not time travelers. They were changed. Exquisite with age and growing-up. She stared at them, her eyes glittering and growing damp, lit tenderly inside her face like candles. Two gentle flattering wicks in a hurricane darkness. She ushered them inside the house, then into her arms.

"It's good to see you, Mrs. Jaeger," said Armin as he was swept up against her heart, the same way she would embrace Eren. She let Armin out of her arms, smiling, still holding him but with her glittering, wet eyes now. "Is Eren home?" Armin said.

"He's here. Up, locked away in his room. Playing his computer games, I reckon. That, or sleeping." She put her hands on her hips. She was looking at them, comparing their current selves with her memory of them. "I can't tell you how good it is to see the both of you. I can't remember the last time you came to the house." She kissed their faces. Her cheek was soft, velvety. She led them upstairs to Eren's room.

They moved up the steps, stained and beige-carpeted. Mrs. Jaeger, Mikasa remembered, had demanded five years ago that Mr. Jaeger hire a crew to tear up the carpet and replace it with wood flooring. The beige carpet still cushioned their feet, muffling their footfalls.

On the wall hung picture frames. Photos of Eren, Armin, and Mikasa: Sand castles at the beach. Fishing at a neighborhood pond. The happiest place on earth: Disney World, Cinderella's Castle. They were wearing character hats. Eren: Pluto. Armin: Mickey Mouse. Mikasa: Sorcerer.

"I'm glad you're here," Mrs. Jaeger said breathily, climbing the stairs. "I think it'd do Eren some good to reconnect with friends. He's been so lethargic lately. He never wants to do anything but play on his computer and sleep." She toiled over the last stair, breathing. They followed and waited outside Eren's door. Mrs. Jaeger's knuckles connected twice.

"Eren. Your friends are here." She seized the handle, pushed. In the room, only a single bedside lamp gave off a subdued artificial yellow glare. At a wood desk was Eren on his computer in a white cotton tee and plaid boxers. His upper thighs were paler than the inside of his wrists. Tiny voices came from headphones clamped over his ears.

"Mom," he said complainingly. He swiveled in the desk chair. He took the headphones down, staring, not surprised or unsurpised to see Armin and Mikasa standing outside his bedroom. His skin was dulled, faded. He sat, large, in the desk chair.

"Get off that computer. Your friends are here." He was not surprised by this, staring. "Put on some pants." Mrs. Jaeger swung the door closed. To Armin and Mikasa, she turned and changed tones. "Do you want anything to eat? to drink?"

"Thanks, but I already ate," said Armin.

"What about you, Mikasa?" Mrs. Jaeger's eyes pressed her.

"I already ate too. Thanks."

"You sure?" Mrs. Jaeger's eyes pressed her again.

"Yes, ma'am."

"All right." She said it like she didn't believe it. Then she let them alone, outside Eren's bedroom, moving back down the stairs in her bare feet.

A moment later, the door swung in and Eren didn't emerge from his room; he inserted himself in the doorway like a strip of paper slipped between two panes. He was wearing red mesh shorts. His dark hair was black with oil.

"Just so you know," he said. "I need to shower."

"Don't worry about it." Armin pushed past Eren's shoulder and into the bedroom. Shelves were cluttered with miscellaneous things. Clothes were clumped on the floor. The bed, however, was made neatly.

A potent locked-up Eren smell imbued the air. It wasn't unpleasant. Just pervasive and distinctive, drowsy and unchanging. It was like the inside of an attic or a basement, stagnant with quarantined slumber. On either side of Eren's bedroom window, silver duct tape ran along the edges of a navy curtain. Armin sat on the foot of the bed.

"What's wrong with your window?" Armin said.

"Nothing," Eren said.

"Why'd you tape your curtain to the wall?"

"It blocks the light, so I can take naps during the day."

A single bedside lamp flared light from an ailing bulb. Morose halos fell from wall to wall. The room was an underground bunker. Outside, the world could be burning. Outside Eren's room, the world could've been burning all the time. Mikasa entered Eren's bedroom vault and looked for a position to hunker down. Eren's desk chair was empty. She sat on the floor.

Eren said: "You can sit on the bed, you know," and Mikasa stared wordlessly at his face. "What?"

"You screw your girlfriend in those sheets."

Armin sprang off the bed.

What Eren did or didn't do with his girlfriend, Mikasa didn't know. She only heard the stories flung from tongue to tongue. Mouths with no off switches, operating unstoppably every minute of every day. Around school, stories fluttered and swarmed like clouds of moths, powdery wings whispering: _i saw them—under the cafeteria table—damn nasty_—

"They're clean," Eren said. "They're clean."

"I'm fine here." Mikasa pulled up her legs and put her chin on her knees. Turning the desk chair around, Armin sat in it backward. His long awkward legs straddled the front.

"My bed is _clean_. I swear. I literally just changed the sheets a few hours ago."

The powdery wings whispered, building to whirlwinds, and Mikasa heard them. She picked the threads in her hoodie. "I don't know . . ."

"Oh, my god, Mikasa. They're clean. I don't even see Nora that much anymore."

"You don't?"

"No."

On the edge of the bed, Eren sat down. Mikasa moved and sat beside him. She twisted her head and looked across her shoulder at his face. He moved his head and under his eyebrows, his eyes stared out and didn't see anything and there was nothing behind them. Two windows without any lights on. He was asleep. He was always asleep. She moved her head with his, keeping view of his face, wondering, remembering, trying to understand (though it wouldn't happen for some time yet).

"It's a little uncanny, being back here after so long," Armin said. "Things are familiar, but they're different. Your house, your room. This desk is new."

"I got it last year."

"Your mom looks stressed out by the way. Is she doing okay?"

"I think so." Eren sat on the bed. He was still, but under his face, on the inside, something was moving. "It's probably PawPaw. He's been pretty sick."

Armin and Mikasa watched Eren. They patiently waited, ready to listen. But the lights were still off in him. Just flat dark glass eyes. He said nothing more, and they said nothing too. Eren's ceiling fan slowly ticked, turning, swishing the Eren-smell within itself.

"What about you?" Eren said. "How's your grandpa?"

"He's doing all right, I guess," Armin said. "He's getting up there, you know. It's getting harder for him to move around."

Sitting on the bed, Eren and Mikasa looked at Armin now. His arms rested on the back of the swivel chair, his chin rested on his arms. Eren and Mikasa were ready, patient, waiting to listen to more about it. All that Armin was going to say, he'd already said, they soon realized. Now they were being quiet out of their own silence. And they didn't know how to break it. In the time they spent apart, they'd forgotten how to encourage each other to speak. Forgotten how to be streetlights, guiding each other down dark roads.

Eren was lost. Armin didn't know where he was going but thought he did.

The ceiling fan continued ticking in a slow circle.

Inside her oversized hoodie, Mikasa shivered.

"Sorry," Eren said. "That sounds hard."

"It's okay," Armin said.

Silence, two years' worth of it, took over the room. It'd been too long since they'd last tried to speak to each other, been too long since they last tried to talk about themselves.

Mikasa's ear did not throb.

Slyly she looked at Eren.

"What?" he said.

"Let's watch a scary movie."

"No."

"Yes."

"Do you even know who I am?" he said.

"Eren McChicken Jaeger," she said.

"And you're trying to kill me, apparently. My anxiety levels are too high for that. I'll drop dead of a heart attack."

"I'll resuscitate you."

"No, you won't. You'll watch me die and laugh as I ascend. I remember how you do, Satan."

"I'm an angel."

"So was Lucifer." Eren hugely exhaled. "I'm going to die."

"You're not going to die."

"I'm going to die."

"You're so dramatic. Isn't he being dramatic, Armin?"

Armin lifted his head from his arms. He wiggled the off-yellow toe patches of his cotton socks. "You know I hate scary movies, Mikasa. I always have a hard time falling asleep afterwards."

"It won't even be that scary," Mikasa said.

"We can't all be Satan incarnates," Eren said.

"It won't even be scary," she said.

It was two against Mikasa, so they negotiated. After Mikasa made them feel bad enough about themselves, 'wimps' 'wusses' 'chickens' 'big babies,' an agreement was reached: A horror movie downloaded in Eren's rental library. He clicked on it. The film studio's logo emerged. Opening credits began.

Between Armin and Eren's shins, Mikasa lied on her stomach, closest to the TV, satisfied, her chin in her palms, hood tugged over her hair. The lamp was turned off. Armin and Eren sat against the headboard, sharing a bowl of buttery popcorn. Reluctant scary-movie watchers, Armin was a flincher; Eren was a squinter and a reactive flincher. When Armin flinched, Eren did too, surprised each time, not by the movie, but by Armin's violent jerks.

For a while, they silently watched. It started as many low-budget horror movies did: Teenagers on a road trip. Vans, bongs, beer, hormones. Somewhere there was a killer. The jock character took his blond girlfriend into a secluded place in the woods. They began to make out. Nobody ever liked these characters. These characters were always the first to die. The jock started to undress his girlfriend. Mikasa cringed in her hoodie.

Eren nudged her with his foot. "You're watching a little too hard," he said.

"Huh?"

"You're into it," he said.

Armin laughed.

"What are you talking about?" she said.

"I see why you like scary movies now."

"What? No," Mikasa said.

"What? No," Eren mimicked in an insulting falsetto. "Why you being defensive?"

Armin laughed.

"I'm not."

"Uh-huh."

They laughed. It was two against Mikasa again. Revenge for calling them 'wimps' 'wusses' 'chickens' 'big babies.'

Mikasa yanked the drawstrings of her hood. It scrunched closed around her face, over her eyes, over her chin. She was a worm, a cocoon. "Stop talking, Eren, or I swear to God, I'll chop your feet off and make you eat them."

"Whoa," Eren and Armin said together like she was an impetuous horse getting out of hand. "Whoa."

Her hoodie flooded with waves of embarrassment. She squirmed back onto her belly, facing the TV. Next to her, Eren radiated like a muscled-furnace. Large in body mass, always burning hotter than the environment. The scene was long over, the characters were already eviscerated and dismembered. Barely watching, Mikasa lied motionless on her stomach, scrunched up, warm, inside her hood.

When out of nowhere the killer lunged, Armin jolted with a yelp. Eren jolted reactively.

"You're such babies," said Mikasa.

"_You're_ a baby," said Eren.

Armin covered his eyes. "I _hate_ scary movies."

Mikasa crawled over Eren's legs and went to the bathroom and, unzipping her hoodie, patted water on her face. Then she returned, hood drawn up again, crawled over Eren's shins, and retook her spot in the middle.

"You okay?" Eren said.

"Who?"

"You."

"Yeah. Why?"

"Just asking."

Mikasa let her hair out of her hood and looked away from the TV, and still on her belly, she twisted her face, to look at Eren sitting against the headboard. He tilted the red bowl to her.

"Popcorn?" he said. It was almost empty.

"No."

Eren held the bowl in his lap. They were looking at each other. After having been embarrassed by him, she was ready to ask, ready to carefully peel back layers to find answers that only he could disclose.

"To be honest," she articulated carefully, "I've been kind of worried. You've been getting in trouble lately."

"That's not my fault," he said. "My teachers hate me."

"Yeah, okay."

"I'm serious," he said. "Mrs. Brooke sent me to the office for no reason. I wear those pants all the time and never got dress code before."

"Wear a belt."

"I don't like belts."

"That's your choice."

"I don't like belts," Eren said. "I never liked belts."

On her stomach, Mikasa grew still, head twisted, looking at Eren. Eren was not stupid. He had never been stupid. She turned over on her side, seeing him better. His hand, wrist-deep in the chip bowl, dug out a palmful of popcorn. LCD snowed over him. His eyes were black. He clapped popcorn to his mouth.

"You've worn those jeans before," Mikasa said, saying what she knew he wanted to hear. "And nobody ever said anything."

"Thank you. That's what I'm saying."

If he'd worn those jeans before, Mikasa couldn't remember. And still, even now, she couldn't remember. Sympathy told her Eren wasn't wrong. And memory reminded her Eren owned a small stock of clothes that he recycled regularly. All you needed, Eren had told her, was a pair of dope-ass shoes. You didn't need an elaborate wardrobe. You didn't even need name-brand.

Nike high tops sat by his door.

On the TV, the movie was playing, ignored.

Eren said: "Do you know Cassandra Acosta?" and No, neither Armin nor Mikasa knew her. "She's one of Nora's ten-thousand cousins, and her _Quinceañera'_s next Saturday. Do you guys want to go with me? It's okay that you don't know her. A lot of people going don't know her."

"I'm taking Grandpa fishing that day," Armin said.

"Tell him I said hi."

"Okay."

They fell quiet. Mikasa sat up, crossed her legs, facing them in the dark. Horror-movie screams erupted behind her. Neither boy jumped or jolted, watching her instead of the TV.

"How about you, Mikasa? You busy?"

"I don't think so." She knew so. She was never busy. Her teeth clamped the edge of her thumbnail.

"Want to go?" Eren said.

"Not really."

"Please? I watched a scary movie for you."

Her teeth chewed the nail shorter. "You know how I am." Broken keratin shreds came away in her teeth. To later dispose, she rubbed them off in her hoodie pocket.

"I know," Eren said. "But I'll be there with you the whole time. If you get anxious, you can grab onto me. If you want to leave, we'll leave. We'll do whatever makes you feel better."

"Not going'll make me feel better."

Colors from the TV flashed and flickered on Eren's face. His eyes were black and shiny. "All right," he said, patiently. "I won't push you."

She chewed the nail of her pointer finger now and didn't look at him directly. "It's just, I've had people say they'll be with me. Then they forget and leave me to go talk to other people who are less boring than I am. And I don't really feel like putting myself in that situation."

"You're not boring. You can stick to me like a glove. Okay?"

"I think you mixed up your idioms." Her hands were freezing. Eren waited for her answer. "I don't know. It's just not my scene. My palms are already getting sweaty." She held out her arms. Her right thumbnail was a thin, jagged stub.

Eren put his palm on top of her glittery palm and dragged his hand down hers, wiping grains of ice-water away.

"Gross." Mikasa cringed. "Why would you do that?"

"If you go, I promise I'll be there with you the whole time," he said. "I won't leave you," he said.

_I won't leave you_, he said.

* * *

a/n: You know those mix-and-match flipbooks where you can turn different sections at a time and create new outfits or new characters? There's usually one combination for each picture that seems to match the best. But they all form a complete outfit or character, no matter what page is turned up. It just might look awkward sometimes. I feel like that sort of represents what I'm trying to do with this story. There are other realities and every reality has common scenes/settings but they play out differently. And these scenes can be mix-and-matched to form multiple timelines.

If it takes me a while to update, it's cos I'm trying to do something that I don't know how to do. It's just trial and error.


	3. Next Saturday

Sorry it took a month to update. This chapter is 11k+ words.

* * *

Next Saturday

The parking lot was an endless herd of metal whales, red sunlight shining on their reflective backs. People glided across the parking lot, compelled by the magnetic throb of the event center. Dresses swished. Buttons glittered. A red diamond magic shimmered the air.

Mikasa crossed her arms, moving her legs, walking beside Eren. —_Are you cold?_ —No, she wasn't cold. Her knees banged together as she walked, glued to Eren's shoulder. His dress-shirt rustled, stiff. Ironed flat. Pastel pink. Shoes, bright tan. Glazed at the toe like wet caramel. Tapping with each step, they produced lonely echoes wherever he went.

Tonight, he was wearing a belt. His hair was pomade-whipped.

At the entrance, Noralis was waiting for him, three inches taller, her feet throned in platform heels. Baby blue sequins sparkled on her dress,. Her curls ran shiny spirals down her shoulders.

"You look good." Eren opened his arms. He leaned in. Noralis's lips were full and wet, dark on her face like sugar glass. She skirted him.

"Uh-uh," she said. "You know how long it took me to make my face?"

"Eighteen years," he said, "and you still ain't done."

Noralis snapped open a studded clutch, took out a compact, examined the two miniature puddles of her face in the palm of her hand. "It's gone be a real shame if I got to bust you in that smart-ass mouth fore we even make it through they front door." She used a fingertip to outline and flatten her eyebrows. Little crystals glittered on the ends of her nails. She flicked the compact. The doubled puddles of her face kissed.

"You looking cute, Mikasa," Noralis said. "And skinny. I'm jealous. I got this belly pudge. I'm getting fat."

"Fat?" Eren snuck his arms around Noralis, his palms huge on her stomach. "Don't you think I'd notice if you were getting fat?"

"You don't even notice when I cut my hair."

"If you shaved your head I'd notice."

"So if I gained one-hundred pounds, then you'd notice."

"Probably. It might be slightly harder to put my arms around you."

"Get off me." She shouldered him away. "It's too hot for that."

From the event center came an undersea carnival of music. It was like the sound of a secret Neverland hidden inside a small box with the lid on.

Noralis led them to it. The sky laid a radiant rose-petal gauze on their faces. Eren reached ahead and opened the door. Music gusted over them, ten times louder. Noralis went in. From the doorway, Mikasa peered in. There was the small stir of her cells vibrating, adjusting to the secret world.

Noralis's perfume blew behind her in a stream of fairy-dust.

The door closed. The rose-colored sun was sucked away.

Inside, it was a fantasy world of pastel blues, lights and music and laughter. It was as if time had been frozen in the moments just before midnight, never striking the hour. Just perpetually hanging in that second right before the magic-shattering toll.

"It's okay," Eren said to Mikasa. "You don't even have to talk to anybody if you don't want to."

Like flies mesmerized, hopelessly pulled to the light, Eren and Mikasa moved into the ballroom, and followed Noralis and her trail of sweet fairy-dust to a round table decorated in baby blue. There already were five others, seats claimed, in pretty dresses and nice pants and pressed shirts. Five faces unfolded, and they each had the same paper face with the same paper smile, and Eren smiling too, all paper and glass-marble eyes.

This is Alenys and Soleil, said Noralis to Mikasa. This is Eren's friend Mikasa, said Noralis to Alenys and Soleil. Hello, said Mikasa. Hi, they said. That's Angel, over there, talking to Eren. And that's Jason. He's Filipino. Cute, right? You and him should— The three girls gave Mikasa indicative looks. Raised eyebrows. Innuendos.

Wordlessly Mikasa smiled.

"He can be a bit of a ho, though."

The girls' earrings twinkled with their nodding heads.

"_Hola_, I'm—"

"Uh-uh." A third grinning boy, unintroduced, was shoved away by Noralis. He was wearing her matching shade of baby blue.

"What?" the boy said. He grinned, enjoying Noralis's game. Dimples whorled at the corners of his smile. "I am not allowed to talk to her, Cuz?"

"Nope. You're not allowed to talk to nobody." Noralis shoved him away again. He grinned a wide dimpled grin. "Bye."

"_Por qué_—"

"Bye." Noralis blocked him, hands on her hips, assuming a protective stance in front of Mikasa. The boy was laughing, enjoying it. "_Bye-e_," she said viciously.

The boy wove around Noralis, slick and agile as an otter, slipping past. "My cousin thinks I am bad. But I'm not bad."

"Don't lie."

"I only like to have fun and make new friends. That is not bad." Noralis's cousin had light eyes. Long lashes, perfectly curled, as if he'd manicured them that way. Smiling, he held out his hand. "I am Miguel."

"I'm Mikasa."

"Mikasa. _Mucho gusto_." He placed a kiss on the top of her hand.

Surprised, Mikasa sat up straight and delicately took her hand back.

On the dance floor, a sea of bodies moved together in their dresses and dress shirts. Miguel flowed Mikasa under the gushing starry lights. They were dancing. Everybody was dancing.

Miguel touched Mikasa's spine, surprising her.

Steadily the air shrunk closer. Everything vibrated.

Just a few feet away, Eren held Noralis. His watch-band glimmered and flashed, blurring when his arms moved. Like a streak of meteors torn apart, falling through the atmosphere. The two swung around and took up more dance floor. Then they came in and slowed. They held each other close. Her profile was pressed to his heartbeat.

Invisible tethers attached them at the waist and drew tighter and tighter, and expanded, and filled. Bodies began to steam and give off different flesh smells. The shrunken air clung, moistening their backs, their throats. Eren's stiff pink shirt softened.

The song changed. Now everybody danced with everybody, inside everybody's steam.

Mouths shouted Spanish along with the music. Mikasa's body followed the beat, feeling the chest-rattling sonar of deepsea drums. From above, she imagined she could see the tops of a hundred heads, a hundred undulating bodies. Miguel moved on her the way boys did; you couldn't see them, you could only feel them like shadows sticking slyly to you.

In the center of the dance floor, Cassandra Acosta bloomed in a sparkling blue ball gown. A baby blue rose surrounded by infinite sprouts and dandelions.

The lights quaked.

In the crowd of cousins, all in baby blue, Miguel sweetly danced with Cassandra, caught in spears of rainbow lights.

On Mikasa's hips were a pair of slow hands. They could not be Miguel's.

Mikasa spun her head around. Behind her shoulder, Eren's face was a face dreaming in a warm bath of slow sweet smoke. Soft. Undersea. Slowly, slowly, they sank.

Lights moved above them like ten eyes, looking around the room, beaming and swirling, then wavering, underwater.

Eren insinuated Mikasa into a reverted hold, sinking her deeper, drawing her with him where he hung in a dark ocean, drowning. She wafted downward onto her back, lying on a soft imaginary bank under miles of colored lights. Time lived, over again, in her imagination.

Her mind travelled backward. Remembering when they were eight years old. Remembering Eren, a little boy.

Her mind travelled forward. Graduation gowns, college. Imagining Eren, a grown man.

The dream-lights churned up rippling wakes, submarine, over her eyes.

She was seated at a table now. Next to her, Eren sweltered in his pink dress-shirt, the top two buttons undone. Their bodies were damp and hot. From plastic champagne glasses, they drank soda, frosty, chunked with ice. Mikasa drank water.

Angel, Jason, and Miguel crowded Eren, their backs to the adults. The girls flew free, sparkling, flying back to the dance floor. Jason shuffled around in his jacket and brought out two flasks. He unscrewed one and drank. The other boys took turns drinking. When Angel went, his body juddered like a plane passenger in a bout of turbulence. The boys laughed.

Jason opened the second flask and flowed clear liquor down into Eren's coke. Eren took the flute and lifted the coke joining the two flasks, raised to a toast: _Here's to Plan-C,_ said Jason. _What?_ said Angel. _If Plan-B fails,_ _coathanger it._ Jason laughed at himself. Angel and Eren groaned. They raised their glasses again. _Salud, _Angel said. He and Eren drank.

The girls danced together in a sparkling rainfall, dripping in their whispery dresses. Mikasa silently sat, as if she were an empty black halter dress, draped across the back of an empty white chair.

Into Eren's glass, Jason washed a second shot from the flask, draining it. He and Angel left to get more from the car. Eren drank. He shared his cup with Miguel. Miguel grimaced and told Eren it was shit, returning it. Eren lifted the glass for the third time and for the third time, Mikasa watched him drink.

"You're my ride home," Mikasa said.

"I know. I'll just finish this one."

He tilted the cup. His throat pulled.

"Eren."

"Last one. Don't worry. I got it under control." Then he slugged it down. Coca-Cola rivers thinned into rivulets. Icicle drips trickled, last, onto Eren's tongue.

Mikasa got up and went to the bathroom. Her underwear was suffused like she'd been dunked in a pool from the waist down. She cringed, sliding it back on, cold. She examined her dress, checked for any catches or slips. In the vanity, her face shined and her lips were pale. When she came back out, Miguel was there in the hall, waiting for her. His baby blue shirt hung open. Under it, a white tank top clung to his chest, drying.

"I seen how Eren act sometimes," Miguel said. And Mikasa had never seen what Miguel had seen. She didn't know how Eren acted or how he could act. "I can take you home if he start to acting bad." But Mikasa didn't know how bad Eren could start acting.

"Thanks," said Mikasa.

# # #

The hour was nine. Though that didn't matter much. Time didn't exist for young people because every day was today and every minute was now.

But now, Eren Jaeger was gone. He and the other boys had loped off. To where, Mikasa didn't know. At the round baby-blue party table sat Noralis, Soliel, and Alenys, chattering like birds. Subjects ranged from anything to anything else, but altogether nothing whatsoever.

In front of her, Mikasa seemed to hear their voices, muffled, as though they spoke behind a blank white wall.

"This dress is aggravating me." Noralis pinched the top of her dress and wrenched it up under her breasts. "You're lucky, Mikasa. You never got to worry about your boobs falling out your dress. It's so aggravating."

"What you mean 'aggravating?'" Alenys said. "I _wish_ I had to worry about my boobs falling out my dress."

"It's aggravating. Took me three hours to locate a dress that actually fit cause this body's got a little bit of personality." The crystals on Noralis's fingernails flashed off tiny shots of light. "Mikasa. What size you is?"

"Zero," said Mikasa.

Noralis smacked her tongue. "Ah-h. Bet you can walk into any store and find something your size, two second." She held up two glittering talons. "Skinny girl privilege." Alenys and Soleil laughed.

"But girl, look. Everybody knows," said Soleil, "only dogs like bones."

The other two girls screeched.

"You're such a bitch," Noralis said. "Oh, my god."

"What? It's _tr-ue_."

Three tongues flapped inside three pink caves, laughing.

"But Mikasa," Noralis said. "She don't mean like, you. It don't even apply to your situation."

"Yeah," Alenys said. "You're just Asian. They's packaged small."

The girls moved on. Their voices went in and out behind the blank white wall as Mikasa, without knowing it, began to float and drift and sway away. She put a hand to her pounding forehead.

"—messaging him and sending pics—"

"Uh-uh."

"No lie."

"That ugly ho."

"Aha-ha-ha!"

"The cheer squad—"

Still without knowing it, Mikasa rose from the table, tied to her own body by strings like a balloon, trailing just behind herself. She went out of the ballroom and into the hall. Then into the women's restroom, she dreamily floated. She took the handicapped stall at the end and locked it and tried to do business. Her body told her she was too early. Then she washed her hands and as she rubbed them over themselves, lathering, a vanity threw her own face back at her. Her eyes lifted to it. She was unsurprised by it, and at once disappointed.

The faucet squealed off. Paper towels took the water from her hands. Now the mirror foisted the full-body image of Mikasa Ackerman into her view and part by part, she began to deconstruct what she saw.

Inside her mind, she was lying on a bed, her arms outspread, staring at a bare ceiling. A boy, she imagined, crawled on top of her. A boy who liked her. All the boys who had ever liked her, occupying the same single body. A flesh mannequin that, in a shimmer of illusion, changed identities, constantly. Under him, she lied motionless, her arms spread on either side of her shoulders like a crucifix. Then, as he was about to go down, his jaws opened and his teeth were not human teeth, his jaws were not human jaws; a hundred serrated fangs snapped shut on her body, but her body wasn't a body; below her breasts, her flesh dissolved away into skeleton, and where the ribcage stopped, the floating rib bones were torn away from her spinal cord and the hundred canine teeth chewed and gnawed and ground the bones to splintering chips.

When Mikasa returned to the ballroom, the table was empty. She reclaimed her seat and sat, alone. The others were dancing again. They surrounded Cassandra Acosta. Boys took their turns dancing with the birthday girl. A white tiara glistened on her head and shed rainbow prisms of light. Cassandra Acosta danced with all the boys, somehow hovering, untouchable, in their arms. Pure, fifteen for all time.

A boy who seemed nice enough approached Mikasa sitting alone at the table. Gently she sent him away. A little while later, a second boy approached. Mikasa's stomach seesawed. In time, she was alone again.

Then Eren sat down next to her and cooled off. He drank chunky-iced soda. Mikasa was relieved to see him. She took her hand away from her pounding head.

"While you were gone, two people asked for my number," she said. "Which is three more than I was expecting."

"You were expecting negative one people to hit on you," he said.

"Solid math. It's no wonder you're passing calculus."

"Okay, College Algebra. You're supposed to be smarter than me. Why am I ahead of you in math?"

"If I don't have to take Calculus, I'm not going to."

"That's surprising," he said. "I thought you liked math."

"Is that a racist joke?"

"No. Did you at least give one of them your number?"

"No."

"That's not surprising." Eren dumped ice into his mouth. Sitting forward, he munched on it. His ears and temples moved when he chewed.

"I've never been to a _Quinceañera _before," Mikasa said. She scratched the inside of her wrist.

"No?"

"Cassandra's beautiful. I've never seen someone so beautiful before."

"I think you should meet her." Eren poured more ice into his mouth, smiling mysteriously as he did. His ears moved with his jaw muscles. "Want to? Let's go."

They left the chairs and stepped onto the dance floor and approached Cassandra. They entered her radiant sphere. She was like a chandelier, tinkling with blue crystal-light. She smiled a thousand glass sparkles and said hello, and Eren said hello and palmed Mikasa's shoulder and displayed her, in her plain black halter dress, to a thousand twinkling blue-crystal raindrops.

"This is Mikasa Ackerman."

"Eren's told me about you," said Cassandra.

"Oh," said Mikasa.

"He said you've been close friends since elementary school."

"Oh," she said.

"Since third grade," Eren said.

Eren and Cassandra began to talk about the party. Then they talked about people Mikasa didn't know. Under the lights, Mikasa tried to listen, tried to pay attention. But before she knew it, the conversation was ending and she hadn't heard what had been said.

"We just wanted to talk to you while we had the chance," Eren said.

"Happy Birthday," Mikasa said, smiling, embarrassed by Cassandra's importance and grandeur.

Eren and Mikasa left. They retook their chairs. The others still hadn't returned.

"Cassandra's nice," Mikasa said. She sat, curved over. Her shoulder blades stood out. She scratched her wrist. Beside her, Eren reached over and separated her right hand from her left wrist. He rubbed the nervous activity from her fingers.

"When I'm anxious, my hands start shaking," he said, "and it's hard to breathe."

"I didn't know that."

"It's pretty new. Like in this last year." He held her fingers. Then he began to manipulate and play with her fingers. He bent each one down in numerical order and skipped the middle finger. He made her flip off the world. "Say 'fuck.' One time."

"No." Mikasa tried to pull free.

"Wait." Eren matched their palms together and outlined her fingers with his.

She remembered, once, their hands had been small. She remembered, once, they would fight like two boys, wrestle in the grass, giving each other bruises. Sometimes they even hurt each other, made each other cry.

Now his fingers were long, and overcame. Five towering giants. Good at parting pool water, stirring currents in his palms as he pulled down the lane.

"Do you still play the piano?" he said.

"I—"

The other boys came in a swarm of dress shirts and languid joints. Smelling like sweated down cologne. Eren was swarmed out of his chair and he told Mikasa he'd be back, then he was swarmed away. The boys moved like one chimeric creature with four heads and leather pointed-toe hooves, roaring and howling with bad language and cryptic jokes. Concealed in their pockets swashed around secret mischief. They swarmed down the hall. The four-headed creature failed with laughter, shoving itself around.

Mikasa took out her phone. Puzzle games occupied her mind. For a quarter of an hour, she was unaware of the party, the empty table. Then the quarter hour passed and she remembered it all. Mikasa put her phone away. Suddenly tired, she hugged her arms. Insulation lined the inside of her cranium. Her brain was no longer suspended in jelly, protected. It was boxed, far far away. Sound was reduced. Feeling was faded. She stared and saw nothing of what she was looking at.

"Are you cold?"

When she raised her head, Miguel was a shadow-face with two wet stones for eyes. He took his jacket from the back of his chair and flicked it around her shoulders. In the chair at her left side, he sat, turned to her.

"Why are you alone?" he said.

"I'm resting," she said. "Where did the others go?"

"Dancing," and Yes, on the dance floor, Angel, Jason, and Eren were dancing. "You are too beautiful to be alone."

Silently Mikasa smiled.

It was getting late.

In the crowd, a change was occurring. It was like the first tremors of an earthquake that promised to rattle them all and shatter them all.

Clothing began to inexplicably vanish. Shoes were slipped off feet. Buttons came undone. Thumbs drew suspenders free. Bodies on the dance floor wriggled and tremored. There was an urgency, a kind of desperation. The friction of the hour shuddered as time closed on the night like fateful scissor blades.

Noralis was swept up against Eren and they were two figurines inside a snowglobe, their world feverishly shaken up, clouds of glitter swirling in an iridescent blizzard.

"Want to dance more?" said Miguel. His hand caressed Mikasa's leg.

"Not right now," she said.

"No?" Miguel smiled his dimpled smile. "Ahhhh," he sighed. "O-kay." Where his dimples were, it seemed, all of a sudden, that round invisible nails had stabbed him in the cheeks and mounted a sweet smiling face to a grimacing skull.

On the dance floor, Eren dipped his head and, reaching up, Noralis gripped his face to hers. As she cradled his head, the gems in her nails winked like ice.

It was getting very late.

Under the lights, girl hips, boy hips careened into one another. Pistons pounded, working, driving young flesh-machines. The bodies were engines, locomotives. Black-pupiled eyes scoped and telepathically undressed.

Miguel's hand fondled Mikasa's leg. Her eyes fixed to his fingers.

"You are nervous," he said. "You are nervous easy." She pinned his hand with her eyes, watching it as it felt up her thigh. His hand slid behind the secret black veil of her dress.

"Shy girls are always nervous easy."

As the stories went, boys like Miguel were magicians. They could transform sweet-spots into red dripping maraschino cherries. And boys like Miguel were always craving tequila. Or so the stories went . . .

"I make you blush." Miguel's dimples were hammered deep, deep in his face. He leaned against her arm. Mikasa sat on the tip of her spine, staring out of her sockets at the dance floor. Under the black halter dress, she was a sexless alien entity.

"Relax. Okay?" His arm reached across her stomach.

The lights slowed. The music had no tune anymore. Just repeated poundings as if a giant fist were knocking on a glass dome encasing the earth. Some omnipotent voice shouting, W_ake up, Open the door._

Stars died, endlessly, on Eren's wrist.

"Stop touching me."

"Stop?"

"Stop." Mikasa caught his elbow.

Miguel took his hand out of her dress. "I don't do something you no like." He lifted his palm. "I stop."

On his hand, Mikasa imagined she could see a white print where he'd touched her, as if girls were secretly dumped in powder, and age by age, were dusted off, as hands came and went, sloughing off their childhood before they could even realize it was gone without them ever having known childhood long enough to grieve its unexpected dissolution.

Miguel pushed out of his chair and left. Mikasa removed Miguel's jacket from her shoulders. Then on strange alien legs, she went to the bathroom and fumbled into a stall and pulled up her dress and looked at the body she was stuck inside of and wiped it and dried it. She mopped her panties, slid them back on. The dress hushed down over her thighs. Her body weighed in her dress like a pink grapefruit.

When she came out, back into the ballroom, Eren was standing at the table, alone, his dress shirt untucked. His face gave off some kind of faint light. His pomade-gummed hair maintained the feverish motion of groping hands. Mikasa went to him.

"Hi," she said.

"Hi," he said. He was glistening. He spoke a bit breathily. Noralis's fairy-dust was sprinkled all over him. "It's ninety-nine degrees in here. I'm going outside." He started away. Noralis was still on the dance floor. Now it was Jason being churned inside her glittery tempest globe.

Mikasa moved her legs.

Eren stopped. Mikasa stopped. Eren looked at her. He read her. "You don't have to come if you don't want to."

"I want to." Mikasa moved her legs. He watched her move her legs, reading her movements now, then continued. They crossed the room, moving between tables, to the door.

"Did you hurt your leg?" he said.

"No?"

"You're walking like you're hurting."

"I'm not hurting."

Outside, the moon sat very large on the sky. A warm breeze sighed through the night, murmuring in the trees. From where they stood, Mikasa could hear the lake shifting nearby. She heard the frogs, the insects. Far away was the rush of a moving car. Eren's shoes tapped, ghostily, as they walked.

"Miguel's going to talk to you," he said.

"Why?"

"He asked all these questions. Like, if you're talking to anybody. Or if you'd been seeing anybody recently. Questions like that." Eren put his hands in his pockets. "He said he was going to ask you out."

"Oh. What'd you tell him?"

"I told him I didn't know much."

"You didn't know much," she repeated. "You know me," she said. "You know how I am."

"I also told him not to get his hopes up." His hands moved in his pockets. She heard his silver watch tinkle. "I wasn't sure if you'd changed, though."

"I'm not interested. I'm never interested."

"Sometimes feelings hit when you least expect it. Have you ever even opened your mind to it, at least once?"

"I'm not interested." She walked faster, clutching her arms. Her head was down.

"Are you mad?"

"No. I'm just not used to being around all this energy." She pulled in air through her nose.

"Are you about to cry?"

"No."

"Mikasa." Eren's voice was soft. Mikasa held her upper arms, graspingly, trying to pull in air. She exhaled from her mouth. Eren said: "I didn't mean to make you upset."

"It's not you," she said. "It's a lot of things." She continued pulling in air, all the way in, trying to force it deeper, slower, into her belly. "I feel like an idiot."

"Why?"

"It's like I have a hard time being a person. Like I don't know how to be. I don't know what to say or what to do with my face. So I do nothing."

"You're scrutinizing yourself too hard," he said. "You're doing fine."

"I've barely said a word."

"You're talking now."

"Because it's you."

"Talk to me, then. Does it really matter if you don't say much? I told you you didn't have to talk to anybody. You don't have to say a word. Nobody cares if you're quiet. People like you even when you just sit there and say nothing."

Mikasa said nothing.

"Most people have to talk 'cause they can't stand being left alone with their own thoughts. You know what I'm saying?"

Mikasa wrapped herself in her arms. She kept her head down.

"Let me back-up." She could practically hear the running tape in his head splutter backward into the reel, beginning to play over again. "In the end, does it really matter? When are you ever going to see these people again? Most of them live in Miami."

"It's not that," she said. "It's just, sometimes, I start to suspect that there's something wrong with me. That I have a bad personality."

"There's nothing wrong with you," he said. "You'll say something if there's something to say. If there's nothing to say, then you're not going to say anything. Ever since we got here, everybody's been talking about nothing. Noralis talks about nothing all the time. But if there's nothing to talk about, you won't say anything. And that's just how you are. All right?"

Mikasa was surprised by this. Surprised by Eren.

"You don't have a bad personality," he said. "And you're not boring."

Quietly Mikasa lifted her head, still holding herself. From here, she could see the lake. White tinsels of moonlight spattered its surface.

"You never have to say a single word if you don't want to."

Since the day she first met Eren Jaeger, Mikasa had known: There was everything to say to Eren. Everything in all the world.

"Do you want me to take you home?"

"No," she said. "I'm all right now."

The sky was wide and hot with stars. Mikasa heard his solitary footfalls three times. Then, together, they walked in stride onto a pier leading out over the lake. Eren's footsteps echoed, remote, as they came to the end. Moonlight gaped in the middle of the pond like a bloody shotgun wound in a man's chest.

"I know you didn't want to come tonight, but I'm glad you did," he said.

"If anybody else had asked, I would've said no." She sat down on the pier. Eren took off his shoes, his socks. He sat, bare-footed, hanging his legs into the water. "I'm glad I came," Mikasa said.

"You're not too miserable?"

She wound her arms around her knees. "No."

"You don't have a bad personality." Eren's feet ruffled the water. "Not anymore."

"What do you mean 'not anymore?'"

"You were such a brat in middle school. You used to pick a fight with me at every opportunity that presented itself."

"You were mean and said mean things." Mikasa put her chin on her knees. "But you're not like that anymore, either."

Lake water licked the pier's columns. Mosquitos tapped into their bodies' secret places and tried to suck out their life juice. Their hands blindly chased the insects down and in violent sure claps, splatted them out.

Pensively they watched the water.

"I'm going to jump in." Eren stood.

"What?"

"I'm going to do it," he said.

"There's probably alligators," she said.

"There aren't any alligators. It's a retention pond."

Eren's shoes shined their wet caramel toes. His pockets turned out his phone, his keys, his wallet.

"I don't think this is a good idea," Mikasa said. "Don't you see that sign? It says: 'No Swimming.'"

"I don't care what it says. I got to do it."

Finally, he unsnapped the flashing wrist-watch. Its weight was significant when he laid it on the pier. All the items nested, sleeping, waiting to be taken again.

Then in a glimmer of lifted water, like broken glass splashing up in slow-motion from a shattered windshield, Eren slipped away.

Mikasa hugged her knees.

The September night made dead-summer noises.

Eren's items set, left behind, at the end of the pier. Mikasa took up his watch. His pulse had pounded heat into the metal. The band jangled, hot as blood. She looped it around her hand. Three-fingers of slack hung, unfilled, from her wrist.

On the face of the moon, Eren washed up to the surface and onto his back, and levitated. His eyelids were two sewn-up slits.

Mikasa draped her legs over the pier, holding the watch in her fingers. She followed the second-hand as it twitched in a circle.

From somewhere off behind the moonlight came a subtle voice, caught in a breeze.

Mikasa reverted her head.

"What the hell are you doing?"

Noralis marched over to them. Her hands wadded the skirt of her dress, hitching it over her knees, her elbows pointed outward, marching. On the pier, her high-heels stabbed dagger-points. The wood pillars trembled and whined at each step. "You can't be in there. My family'll get fined!" The dagger-points ceased. The pillars quit trembling. Noralis stood and stooped at the end of the pier.

Mikasa stood. Soundlessly, she withdrew.

In the water, Eren was quiet and easy, shut-eyed, on his back as if he were lying on a stainless-steel mortuary table.

"Listen to me," Noralis said. "Why you always acting crazy all the time? You embarrass yourself. You embarrass me. My family's not gone pay a hundred goddamn dollars 'cause you decided to act up. You hear me?"

Not a muscle did Eren move, waiting to be split open by the Mortician and emptied out and stitched back up again.

"You always do crazy stuff, anymore. _¿Estás loco?_" she said. "If you don't stop this crazy shit, I'm dropping you. I mean it. I'm not playing."

The wind lied still. Even the frogs seemed to hold their contacting throats. Eren's silence never broke. Turning away, Noralis gave up, her dress still wadded in her hands, her elbows jabbed outward.

"I'm making Angel take me home. I can't with you no more."

In another succession of dagger stabs, Noralis left, the pillars shivering in pain. Mikasa chewed the inside of her mouth, feeling awkward and ashamed for some reason.

"Did your girlfriend just dump you?"

Without him moving, Eren's voice said: "No," but Mikasa didn't see his mouth speak at all. She only saw that his lips were parted, the sound coming out, saying: "She's always—"

Next Saturday (in another time)

From the night sky, the moon flowed its pale blood into the lake. Eren lied flat on his back in the middle of it, his eyes shut. At the end of the pier, Noralis was stooped, her hands still wadded in her dress, her elbows thrust out.

Her angry shouts faded like a match burning out in the night.

A little behind her, Mikasa held Eren's wrist-watch. The metal was still warm.

As she stood, feeling the seconds jerk and twitch, something strange began to happen.

It might've been the watch's mechanical pulses passing, transferring, beating into Mikasa's fingertips an understanding. There was a bewildering uprush of speed, of clarity, that came over her. It was strange, it was sudden, it was explicit. She could hear Eren: 'I'm going to jump in'— 'I'm going to do it'— 'I got to do it'—

Six months later, she'd remember and think: I must've been feeling what Eren had felt.

"Noralis," Mikasa called. She knew what she had to do.

Still stooped at the end of the pier, Noralis paused. She turned her head.

"Who do you think can hold their breath underwater longer, me or Eren?"

"What?"

Mikasa put down the watch and walked away from the water. The whole time Noralis stared. Once Mikasa had put ten feet between herself and the lake, she turned and motioned at Noralis, and Noralis stared. Mikasa's legs charged and built up strength. Straight down the pier, she sprinted as fast as she could. Lifting her hands, Noralis cried, shocked, and sprang to the side, out of the way.

Mikasa felt the swish of wind as Noralis whooshed past.

Mikasa's feet left the edge of the earth, leaping over an invisible hurtle, soaring impossibly into the middle of a miraculous black void. Water spurted up and closed over her head. Suds flowed and fizzled inside her ears. She dangled, motionless. Then tenderly, lovingly, bubbles carried her up to the giant pale moon like a hundred-thousand tiny worshippers hoisting her onto a pedestal for an ancient ritualistic sacrifice. Her head broke from the lake. She breathed. She pried wet hair from her eyes to see Eren across the water.

He stared with his mouth open.

"One . . . two . . ." Mikasa said, and inflated her lungs enormously, and she saw Eren, his mouth still open in amazement. "Three," she said and she saw Eren scrambling to inhale but she didn't wait for him and dunked away again, under a dark bubbling champagne-spill.

It was then she understood how loud the upper world was as the underwater calmed and stilled and began to ring with a total and absolute silence. Everything was gentle. Everything was easy. Across her legs, her dress drifted billowingly.

She fell deeper, cradled into a womb of ripply watery black. All the tension was taken from her limbs. Her ankles, her hands, her hair, her dress wafted with such slow purposelessness, uncarried by any current.

It wasn't like living. It wasn't like dying. Her own heartbeat, all around. Not her heartbeat. The movement of the water; the movement of the world; the movement of life itself. It went on, and would continue to go on indifferently, against and in spite of everything. Even if you never wanted it to go on ever again.

Then Mikasa sprang up. Watery fingers ran through her hair. Her head broke, airborne, and the stars twirled, sharp and hot above her. She breathed. Her lungs swelled and collapsed, catching the breath she'd lost.

Her breathing re-paced. The moon dripped like a hurt-thing into the lake. Noralis was long gone.

Mikasa remembered Eren.

Panning the surface, she saw he wasn't yet returned. She waited. For some time, she waited and still he hadn't come back.

"Eren?"

She swam to where she thought he might be hidden.

She felt into the blackness.

"Eren?"

She listened. There was nothing but the frogs on the banks sobbing, the sing-song crickets.

_Eren?_

From out of the depths, a vine of blackness seized her by the ankle. Tugged. Playful, almost. She jerked without screaming, without making any sound at all, her breath snagged in her windpipe. The lake gurgled as though vomiting up a buried sea monster. Then, just in front of her, Eren's head emerged. Water ran from his hair and spouted off his nose and chin. He blew out the leftover air capacity.

"I win," he said, gasping. "Did I scare you?"

"No."

"Liar. I scared you."

"No."

He sucked his teeth.

They looked at each other. His hair was slicked to his eyebrows. He mildly bobbed, decapitated at the base of his throat. They worked a little to breathe and tread water simultaneously. Eren dipped a little. His bobbing lightened.

"I can touch on my tip-toes," he said. Mikasa life-lined to his arm. Her legs were stretched out loose behind her, floating, like two pale kites hung on the night sky.

"I can't believe you jumped in," Eren said. She saw his teeth. "Are you crazy? Now if an alligator shows up, we both ate."

"You said there weren't any alligators." She reeled in her vulnerable legs, clumping them to Eren.

"We live in Florida. There's always alligators."

"You lied to me."

"I didn't know you'd jump in."

"I don't like this anymore."

"You scared?"

"Shh." She craned her neck left, right, looking into the night for glowing-coin eyes on top of the water. Dangerous shadows lurked and moved. She watched each one. None of them escaped her. "What's that? over there?" She pointed.

"Grass."

She took a breath, told herself all the shadows were grass, and let go of her life-line. She swam toward shore. Eren caught her calf and she swam, in place, going nowhere. She wailed. "_No-o, st-o-op_." He dove in front of her, crashed ahead like a barrel. She clawed the back of his belt, yanked, dragged him back. They fought and sabotaged, competing like eight-year-olds, Mikasa struggling, merely, to get out of the dark lurking waters. They splashed up the bank, running. Their feet stamped, water spurting from elbows, onto the warm-sand shore. Bowing over, hands on their knees, they panted, grinning an eight-year-old's grin.

"Jerk," she gasped.

"You were scared. Be honest."

"No."

"God. You're such a liar."

In the night air, goosebumps speckled Mikasa's arms. She gripped herself. After gathering their belongings, raining lake water from their clothes, they trudged in their bare feet to the parking lot. Gravel kneaded the bottoms of their feet. Mikasa shivered. Eren kept himself warm with his own body mass. When they reached his Honda Civic, Eren popped the trunk and took up a crinkled duffel back. On it, embroidered in purple was 'Lake Valley High Swim Team.' He rummaged, flung his things out of it: Two pool towels, a T-shirt, running shorts. He gave her a towel and rumpled tee.

"You can change in the car," he said. The trunk clunked shut.

In the back seat, Mikasa swam out of the cold, sopping halter dress. Eren's back was to the window. The empty parking lot, he watched, alert, picking off his clothes hastily without looking at or directing his hands. The rumpled tee, stale with chlorine and storage, guzzled Mikasa. Outside, Eren scooped his clothes into his arms, squatting in nothing but his black underwear. He spun a pool towel around his waist. Mikasa opened the door, stepped out, wearing the pool towel around her legs. Eren looked at her.

"You cold?" he said.

"Yes?" and was suspicious of him. "Why is that funny?"

"Don't worry about it."

"Why's it funny?"

"Nothing. It's not funny. Let's dip." Eren ducked into the driver's seat. The car depressed and shuddered. The door swung and clicked. Mikasa got into the passenger seat.

"You were laughing," she said.

"Oh, my god, Mikasa. You was blinding me with your high-beam headlights."

Her mouth fell open. She crossed her arms. "_Eren_."

"What? You should've let it go. Now we both got to be embarrassed about it, and that's your fault. I didn't mean to laugh. It just came out." The car whirred. The stereo fizzled on and pinged as the Bluetooth automatically connected to Eren's iPhone. "What do you want to listen to?"

They shot down the back street with the windows open. Music rattled into the woods on either side. Wind blasted Mikasa's hair stiffly dry. Once they came to the green country-club neighborhood, they slowed and went along narrow winding roads. Their weight shifted inattentively with the swing of the car. Mailboxes and garbage bins flicked by. On the golf courses, hills undulated, silver under the moon, flags limp, sleeping on the masts. Sprinklers fountained high and out over soft manicured grass. Four displaced deer lifted their faces and Eren and Mikasa watched, and the deer watched, heads swiveling a profound mammal gaze on the creeping car. They motored on.

When Mikasa's street snapped past, she turned to Eren, questioning.

"You can use our dryer so your parents don't trip when they see you," he said.

"Where are your parents?"

"They at the hospital with PawPaw. He was admitted Thursday night."

"Is he okay?"

"He's stable. He's got lung cancer, so he's in and out of the hospital a lot."

They swung onto the cul-de-sac and Eren's small Honda climbed the driveway and beetled into the reserved Eren Jaeger spot, out of the way of the Carla and Grisha lanes. The engine cut, hissed, and silenced. Through the garage, they went in. Leaned up against the wall was Eren's old bicycle, drizzled in cobwebs and insect sarcophagi. The tires were squashed, airless, to the garage floor. The house door jarred open.

Connecting the garage to the rest of the house was the laundry room. The dryer door clanged open. A light came on, beaming onto a gaping toothless metal mouth. Mikasa fed her dress into the machine. It slushed to the bottom of the drum. Eren clashed the door shut, changed the settings to 'delicate,' and jammed the start button. The machine clattered on and began to stir the black halter dress, fold over fold.

"I'm going to take a shower in my parents' bathroom," he told her. "Would you like to use mine?"

Eren took her upstairs, past his bedroom, to the bathroom. Immediately it identified itself as a place of Eren Jaeger's habitat, with the corner-clump of Eren-clothes, an electric toothbrush and, charging in its dock, the mysterious little device that he used to mow his face. He opened a cabinet, took a towel out, and gave it to her. She thanked him. Then he gave her a hoodie and mesh shorts to temporarily wear while the dryer mixed her dress in a low-heat cycle. He went out.

After she finished showering, she went light on her feet down the stairs, gripping up Eren's old gym shorts, oversized on her hips, to keep them from falling. She went to the laundry room and added her panties to the load. Then she climbed quietly back up the stairs, no heavier than a gerbil, hearing Eren's hefty thuds inside his room. Her feet whispered through the door.

Inside, Eren was about to power on his computer. The duct tape running along his window-curtain bundled his bedroom in morose self-isolation. Outside, the streets could have been crumbling. Inside, nobody would ever know it.

Eren dropped weightily into his desk chair. It wheeled two feet and he punched the PC's power button. The tower glowed and hummed with fans, vibrating with its manmade brainpower. The mesh shorts he'd given her, Mikasa held in her fist against her belly button.

"These shorts are too big," she said. "They won't stay up."

"Use the drawstring."

"But, Look." She showed him.

"It doesn't matter. Come here."

He waved her over. When she was standing in front of him, he tugged the drawstring from the lip of the shorts and pulled and the shorts gobbled her up, cinched around her waist. A white rope-tongue stuck out six inches, seven inches? He made a knot. Mikasa let go. The legs bulged from her thighs like two church bells.

Eren spun around. A password lock-screen filled the monitor. Eren inputted his password. The keys punitively clacked.

He opened a music player. The speakers throbbed on his desk.

"This is Shakira," Mikasa said.

"It's Nora's playlist. Her _abuela_ loves Shakira."

"How about Prince Royce?"

"Prince Royce? You know Prince Royce?" Eren spun again. "Oh. I know why you like Prince Royce." Slanted back in the chair, Eren pointed downward and her eyes followed the gesture of his finger to the spread of his knees. "It's his big, Latino . . ." A wind of realization roared into Mikasa's ears. She protested. She refuted. _What, no? _No_—_

Then Eren's finger turned upward and he slashed a Cheshire grin across his face. "Smile," he said. Then the wind roared, louder, in Mikasa's ears. "Whoa, what'd you think I was going to say, Mikasa?" He spun back around, cupping the computer mouse into his palm. "You need to get your mind out of the gutter, you perv."

"You're a perv."

"I'm not the one going commando right now."

Her face grew ten degrees warmer. She smacked his arm.

"Ah." He snatched his phone to his ear. "Hello, police? I was just assaulted by an Asian pervert. She was not wearing underwear."

Mikasa pulled up the hood of his hoodie, embarrassed, and sat on the bed. "I'm going to leave."

"No. Don't leave."

Mikasa didn't leave, she hadn't meant it. She knew he knew she hadn't meant it.

From the bed, she watched Eren's neck as he sat at the desk, his mouse clicking in the quiet room. On the monitor, an online game launched. He waited in the game lobby as other players joined.

The back of Eren's neck was long. The highest vertebrae stood out, the first node on a strong spinal pylon, critical hardware knotted there—

(( Maybe this makes me inhuman, Armin said. But I'm just angry.

I want to beat the shit out of him. I want to—

Mikasa jerked up her hands. She pressed her palms to her ears.

I hate him.

I _hate_ him.

If he cared about anybody other than himself, he wouldn't have done it, Armin said.

Mikasa shook her head.

He was selfish. He was always so goddamn selfish.

Mikasa shook her head, pressing hard on her ears.

I feel bad for his parents. But I don't feel bad for—

I hate him. ))

"I can't believe you jumped in that lake with me," Eren said. He turned his face over his shoulder. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing." Mikasa took her hands from her head. She crammed them down in her lap.

Eren faced the computer again. "Noralis gets embarrassed of me. I get embarrassed of me, too." A loading icon endlessly spun. "What you were saying before, about feeling like something's wrong with you." The game finally spawned him onto a war-zone. Camo-wearing soldiers ran around, carrying military-grade artillery. "I get it."

Next Saturday (in another time)

"Are you cold?" Miguel dropped his silk-lined jacket around Mikasa' shoulders. "Why are you all alone?"

"I'm just resting."

On Mikasa's right side, in the vacant chair, Miguel sat down and rested his hand on her leg. She knifed it with her eyes.

On Mikasa's other side, Eren reeled into the empty seat. From the plastic champagne glass, he guzzled his coke and laughed at nothing. Jason reloaded Eren's glass. Slowly Miguel leaned across Mikasa's chest, reaching his face over to Eren.

He said something in Spanish. It sounded crude. Mikasa didn't understand, but she knew it was boy talk. Angel exploded with laughter.

"You jes smellin that fat upper lip," Eren said.

"I don't know Spanish," Jason said.

Miguel spoke to Eren in Spanish again. Angel exploded again.

"What he said?"

"He said it smelled like pussy in here. He said it's Eren's swampy vagina, something like that. I don't know how to translate it. It's not as funny in English."

Miguel looked at Mikasa. "No. Not me. I don't say that. I never say that." He shook his head and leaned back into his own seat.

Miguel's arm swung around Mikasa's shoulders. She sat rigidly, absolutely still.

"Mikasa," Miguel said, "Eren say to me for many years you are only a friend."

Angel and Jason grinned.

"You are too beautiful to be only a friend."

Mikasa didn't look at him, silently smiling.

"She agrees. See? You miss your chance."

"You're making her uncomfortable," Eren said.

"You are uncomfortable?" Miguel said.

"I'm okay."

"She say she's okay. She is smiling, see?"

"Move your arm." Miguel did not move immediately. Eren swatted and Miguel's arm flew from her shoulders.

"_Oye._ Touch me again, motherfucker."

Across Mikasa, Eren and Miguel stared at each other. From the other side of the table, Jason and Angel leapt up to quickly defuse the sparking drunken cross-wires. The boys sat back down.

"You two were 'just friends,'" Jason continued, "for nine years."

Miguel drank his coke and crunched indignantly on ice.

"You never did nothing? Not even a little kiss?"

"No," Eren said.

"Did you think about it?" Angel said. "Like, just once did the curiosity slide into your mind? Everybody thinks about it at least once."

Eren took a second to register the question. They began to laugh. Miguel stopped crunching. Eren shook his head, denying, realizing his mistake.

"You hesitated," Angel said.

"No, no, no, no," Eren said.

"You did. You hesitated."

"No, no, no. I didn't hear you at first."

"No-o-o," they said.

"I couldn't hear you," Eren said. "I never thought about it like that."

"You're blushing," they said.

They had caught Eren. They had fished him through the eye, and dangled him, squirming, in front of her.

"Everybody thinks about it at least once," Eren said, and dangled like bait, averted from Mikasa, keeping his face controlled, a mask of coolness. The tips of his ears glowed red.

The boys laughed.

"I believe her when she say she never think about you like that," Miguel said. "Your face look like gorilla balls."

"What?"

"That ugly chin." Miguel reached across Mikasa and used three of his fingers to tickle Eren under the jaw. Eren jerked his face away.

"You was remembering a specific moment, I can tell," Angel said. He touched his temple, demonstrating his psychic abilities. "What moment you was thinking of?"

"Two seconds ago," Jason said.

"Ay-ee."

"Ay-ee, _no_," Eren said. "I got a girlfriend."

"There's many beautiful girls," Miguel said.

"She's your cousin."

"_Obvio._ But I empathize."

"Chill. We just curious," Angel said.

"I'm out," Eren said. "I'm done."

"Stop being a little bitch."

"How about you hop off my dick?"

"How about you stop being a little whiny-ass bitch?" Angel turned to Mikasa. "Do you have any idea what time he was thinking of?"

"No," said Mikasa.

"But you want to know. Right?"

Mikasa looked at Eren. He saw her looking at him. The boys watched her looking at him; they watched Eren seeing her looking at him.

"It was after we went to the baseball fields," Eren said, and they were all listening. "We was playing kickball with L.T and the Gomez's."

"Cody Gomez," Mikasa said. "I did not like him." Retrospectively, she simmered. She thought angrily of a small thirteen-year-old boy, with skin like a young girl's, voice like a girl's too, with a buzz cut, a diamond stud, and unpredictable derisive giggling.

"Jit got a life sentence," Eren said. "He deadass murdered somebody in Orlando."

"What?" said Mikasa.

"He was always a prick. But I never thought he'd kill anybody. Guess you never know what a person's capable of till they do it."

"Cody G's dumb as shit," Jason said. "He tried coming at me at Mark Devllen's janky-ass bonfire. You was there."

"Oh, shit," Angel said. "Yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember that."

"You fight him?" said Miguel.

"Knocked him the fuck out."

"Shit."

"Ha ha ha ha ha—"

Mikasa watched Eren, and he saw her watching him. "That night," he went on, confidentially, and Mikasa strained closer, "'cause of everything that happened, your mom had you on lockdown." He leaned forward. She leaned forward too. Behind Eren, the other voices contracted into themselves like a flashlight being turned off. They were alone, Mikasa and Eren, and it was like being confined in a closet together. "But I snuck into your room."

Mikasa nodded, listening.

Eren studied the memory on the table. His irises seemed to magnify what he saw, zooming in, zooming out, watching the scene at various frames. When he blinked, it was like the whish of a camera shutter.

"You were scared your mom would catch us," he said, remembering. "But you didn't make me leave. You didn't even ask me to."

Together they went backward in a time-machine. They were twelve again. Sitting on her bed, cross-legged, facing each other. A lamp shed a low clandestine light across her room. The door was locked. Mikasa hugged an old stuffed bunny rabbit. A hole above its tail regurgitated a tuft of white fuzz.

_You haven't sewn it up yet?_ Eren whispered. _It's been like three years. _

_Don't stick your finger in it, stupid, _Mikasa whispered. _You'll make it worse._

Angel interrupted like a person thrusting their head through a crack in a door: "I thought you said you never did anything?"

Eren leaned back. He turned his face to Angel. "Nothing happened," he said.

"Nothing happened," the boys repeated.

"Nothing happened," Eren said again. "We just talked."

"I was mad," Mikasa said.

Their faces snapped to her. They were interested now.

"What he did?"

"I don't remember," she said. She did remember.

"So it was a kiss-and-make-up situation," Angel said thoughtfully. "Okay, okay."

"Nothing happened," Eren and Mikasa said.

"It was a fleeting thought," Eren said. "She was titillating me in her _Ni Hao, Kai-Lan_ pajamas."

"I was not wearing _Ni Hao,_ _Kai-Lan _pajamas," Mikasa said.

"Never mind. She wasn't wearing pajamas."

"I was _wearing_ pajamas. But I wasn't titillating you. We were twelve."

"_Pijamas?_ No _pijamas?_ _En el cama?_"

"Miguel," Angel said. "_Cállate._" Angel and Miguel briefly cussed at each other in Spanish. Then they stopped. Angel continued: "But you both remember it," he said. "Which means something happened, even if nothing happened."

Angel was drunkenly very proud of himself and, Eren, shielding his hand from Mikasa's view, lifted his middle finger. Mikasa saw Eren's middle finger anyway.

Jason said, "You make no sense," and laughed stupidly, the way boys did when they were drunk together.

Angel grinned slowly, secretively. He giggled a little. Then he said, in a low suspenseful voice, telling them some grand secret: "Ay. I'm pretty fucked-up right now."

The boys laughed. They were one creature with multiple heads.

This time, the creature was chopped one head short. In the chair to Mikasa's left, Eren sat, leaned back quietly and gravely, and putting Jason's flask to his face, he didn't stop drinking until it was done.

# # #

Midnight came.

There was no symbolic gong struck. No centralized Clock Tower tolling twelve times. With a flick of a light-switch, the Neverland disappeared. Only the wreckage lingered. It was as if a great force had blown a massive breath into the room and it had whirled around and picked up chairs and tables and drinking glasses and girls' shoes and belongings and shuffled them up, losing them from the people who would soon be missing them.

As groups of people left, Mikasa, Miguel, and Noralis waited on Eren in the hallway. When Eren finally staggered out of the men's restroom, he took three uneven steps and stared very hard at his feet, thinking meticulously about them. Then before he could take another step, he dropped suddenly into a squat. Noralis fluttered to him and bent down.

Petting circles into his back, crooning, she said: "How you feeling, baby?"

"Trashed."

"It's all right, baby. I'll take you home. We can come back tomorrow to get your car. I got you." She crooned as though speaking to a child, petting him, loving that he couldn't do anything for himself. Noralis picked up her head and looked at Mikasa. "Miguel said he'll drive you home."

"Oh." Mikasa scratched her wrist. "What if I take Eren? He can give me his keys, and I can drive his car. He lives two streets away from me."

Noralis's winged cat-eyes glowed. "No. I don't like that."

" . . . ."

"It's okay," Miguel said. "I take you."

"It's all right," said Mikasa. "I'll call my cousin to pick me up. He lives near here."

"You no ah-h—" Miguel sought Noralis for help and spoke something in Spanish to her. Noralis translated: "He's asking if you don't want him to take you."

"My cousin can come get me. It's fine."

"You don't like me?"

Mikasa glanced at Miguel, he was looking at her with his wet stones for eyes, she looked away. "It's not that." Mikasa held herself. "Eren wasn't the only one drinking. You don't look good to drive either."

"I am good to drive. I been worse before and drive fine."

"I already texted my cousin. He's on his way."

"Oh," he said. "Okay."

Noralis grabbed up Eren from his squat. He lifted massively onto his long swaying legs.

"I'm taking you home now, _papi._ Miguel's got Mikasa_._"

"Like hell." Eren said it like a smack. Noralis and Miguel flinched. The three of them stared at Eren.

"Boy. What you say?" Anger quivered in Noralis's voice.

"Mikasa's not getting in any car with Miguel by herself. Are you stupid?" Eren spoke explosively, each word another new smack, stunning them all. "Miguel can go fuck himself." Eren's nose flared. Heat almost visibly steamed off him in an unpredicted wave of alcoholic rage, rattling from his vents.

For a moment, nobody reacted. Then there was a rush of red and Miguel snarled.

"_Oye._ Say that to my face, motherfucker."

"Go fuck yourself."

Across a seven-foot interval, the two boys glared at each other and did not move yet. Miguel stretched on his backbone, made himself taller next to Mikasa. Goosebumps bubbled on her arms.

"Eren," Mikasa said.

"No. Baby, baby, don't be like that—" Noralis reached for Eren's face with her hands. He strained his neck away.

Miguel started speaking in Spanish, and he grew angrier and angrier the more words that trilled off his tongue and clicked off his teeth, and when he finally came forward, Eren emerged out of himself, gruesomely expanding, becoming a lot more jaw, a lot more muscle, and lot more drunken aggression. They stared at each other's faces. Eren licked his lips. Even at a distance, Mikasa saw clearly the height and weight disparity, and thought Miguel was making a very bad choice. He'd lose badly. And that'd be bad for Eren, too.

How fast the building was about to go up in flames.

Noralis stepped in front of Eren, putting a hand on his chest, her head twisted over her shoulder, crying to Miguel. She held Eren away. The boys grew closer—dangerously, Noralis caught in the middle, short and small, between them.

"Eren, don't," Mikasa said. "Noralis will get hurt."

Over Noralis's head, Miguel reached out and shoved Eren's shoulder. A chemical-dump in their nervous systems had made them hideously dumb and violent. Eren stumbled backward and stood up straight, big-shouldered, and he was tall, and big, and silent, not swinging yet, but getting ready to, his fists all white-scalloped knuckles, his watch clicking and creaking, tick, tick, tick, tick. Behind his face, a light was going off and on, off and on.

Noralis gripped his face, practically bounced off him, knocked away by the rigid bow of his body.

"_¡Basta!_ No no, _mi amor_. _Mi familia_; they're close by. Shush, Shush." Eren was not making any noise at all. But it was as if they could all hear the rumble of blood that his body was making; the shriek of hair fibers lifting from his neck; the groan of his teeth gritting. Noralis was crying. "Please, Miguel. Just leave. _Ahora_." She grabbed Eren, and Eren let her grab him, his knuckles bulged out, creaking. Tick, tick, tick, tick. Over the top of Noralis's head, Eren stared at Miguel through glossy undeviating red eyes.

"Miguel," Mikasa said. She lightly clasped him by his tensed shoulder. A hum was running in him like a battery. "Stop."

Miguel loosened. The hum went quiet. "I don't do something you no like." Without saying anything more, he turned and left the hall.

This was good for Miguel.

This was good for Eren, too.

Noralis looked up at Eren. "_Tu es_ stupid. You act stupid," she said. "You look _estupido_. _¿Estás loco? _Anymore, I don't know." She was crying, looking blearily into his face. "Mikasa will take you home. I don't care." Noralis did not look at Mikasa as she turned and marched by.

Mikasa went to Eren and took him by the forearm. "Let's just go." He was silent. His face was dark and as still as concrete.

Mikasa drew him to the door. He followed behind like a blind man. They went out. Across the parking lot they walked, stride by stride. Eren's shoes clacked, remote, forlorn, not like the clacking shoes of a real person but like the footsteps you might hear at night, imagined, and when you looked up, there'd be nobody at all.

Most of the cars had gone. Under a cone of orange streetlight, Eren's car was beached, isolated, on a black asphalt island.

"I already had it taken care of," Mikasa said, leading him to the lonely car. "I don't dislike Miguel. But even if he were sober, there was no way I was going to let him take me home."

Eren's shoes tapped. At times, off-balance.

"If you would've just—stopped for a second to listen."

She wasn't looking at him, looking instead at Eren's car. But she could feel his red, hot, undeviating eyes on the side of her face.

"I'm fine on my own," she told him.

"I know you're fine on your own," he said. "You don't need me. You don't need Armin. You don't need anybody. In our whole lives, you've never needed anybody whatsoever."

"Don't yell at me."

"I'm not yelling at you."

"Yes, you are."

"No, I'm not.

"Give me your keys."

She snatched away from his arm and he shoved his hand in his pocket, dug out the keys, and thrust them over. Mikasa jerked into the driver's side of the car. She yanked the door shut. It shook. He did the same to the passenger door. They sat in the strange quiet aftermath of slammed doors. When the car's engine puttered on, the strange quietness was brushed away, grain by grain, like a person patting dirt from their jeans. The stereo glowed blue, music-less. Mikasa flung the car into reverse.

For some time, they drove along the straight-shot back street. No words were passed between them. No music lofted from the stereo. No sound but for the drone of the motoring car.

It was silent, but the silence was far from empty. Mikasa and Eren thought deeply. They thought too deeply to wonder about what the other person was thinking. It was all circular, self-directed introspection.

"I'm sorry," Eren finally said. His head was turned to the window. His eyes were closed. "You didn't even want to come tonight," he said. "You think I'm stupid now."

"Not any more than I already did," she said.

His eyes came open. He stared out at the woods, dark and haunting, blurring by.

"That was a joke," Mikasa said. Eren was slumped, his chin in his hand. "Armin wouldn't tolerate you if you were stupid. You know how he is about stupid people."

"Armin hates me."

"What? No, he doesn't."

"Every time he talks to me there's this undertone of pure disdain."

"He doesn't hate you, Eren." The wheel vibrated in Mikasa's hands. The bright headlights penetrated the darkness only so far. "We're your friends. We've been your friends since third grade and we're always going to be your friends. We—" The word evaporated from her mouth. It was an unutterable void. The dark road stretched out past her range of sight. "Armin and I could never hate you."

"I don't know what's wrong with me."

"Nothing's wrong with you."

Sourceless shadows came over Eren and passed, and came over him again. It didn't seem like he could feel them, but Mikasa could just barely see them. Faint patterns of blackness blacker than the dark.

"When you get home, take a shower and go to bed," Mikasa said. "Everything feels worse at night."

Eren closed his eyes again.

In that instant, Mikasa could almost seem to hear, the infinitesimal sound of Eren's eyelids collapsing into dead folds of dead tissue.


	4. September

a/n: 10.7K+ words this time :)

* * *

Next Saturday (in another time)

Noralis gazed miserably into Eren's face. The light was off inside him. A house with nobody home. Noralis seemed to dart around the empty house, through the halls, into rooms, up the stairs, back down. She didn't find him.

"You only ever care about your own feelings," she said. "If you'd get out of your own head for a second, you'd see how selfish you are."

Perfume blew by, carrying a faint saline-tinge. Noralis disappeared around the corner. The sound of her crying rained back into the hallway. Mikasa moved her feet. She moved her hand and caught Noralis by the arm. Her face swung around. The tears on her face were gray like paint.

"I've got a ride," Mikasa said. "My cousin's coming to get me. It wouldn't be right for me to take Eren home since you and him are . . ."

More tears flushed out of Noralis's eyes, running down her cheeks, gray. "No. No. I can't be with him right now. He'll try to let his anger out on me, but I won't put up with it. He says I don't understand. That I can never understand. Like I'm too stupid." She put her face in her hands. "God. _God_."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"You can't say nothing. Can I trust you to say nothing?"

Mikasa nodded.

"If Eren finds out I told you, he'll be mad. He'll be so mad."

"He'll just have to put on his big boy panties, and get over it."

Noralis sank into a chair and put her forehead in her hand. She was a sad image, crying alone with balloons and confetti drooping around her.

"I don't even know how to start." Her head was down. Her shiny curls had lost their sheen. "Things started happening at the end of last year. Things that don't make much sense."

Mikasa waited.

"Last April, maybe March. Sometime around then. We was at his place one night, and we was in his room. That day he'd been acting kind of off. Distracted, you know? I could tell he was being inside his mind and not really paying attention to me. Just focused on whatever he was thinking about. He'd been going inside his mind a lot. So I was getting used to him acting introverted sometimes. It happens, but he always snaps out of it." Her voice fell off. She wrung her hands.

Mikasa nodded in silent encouragement. Noralis breathed and went on.

"It was late," she said. "Two AM or something. His parents was gone for the weekend. So it was just us. I went to the bathroom or something, I was just gone for a couple minutes, and when I come back, he's banging his head on the desk. I didn't know what to do. So I start shouting and I grab him and shake him. And he stops, and I ask him what he's doing, and he stares at me like he don't hear. So I start hollering: 'Have you lost your mind?' And you know what he says to me? He says to me, he got to do it 'cause his head's gone explode. Like he got no choice. His head was hurting him all the time, and it was the only way he could get it to quit."

Noralis groaned. She patted gray tears from her cheeks.

"I started to think on it. What it could be, messing with his functionality. I started thinking it was the weed. You don't feel nothing of what's making you worried or stressed in normal circumstances when you're high. You relax, and it takes you along. Not him, though. He starts seeing bad shit. I don't know. I think it fucks with his psychology."

She lifted her eyes from the table and looked at Mikasa burningly, trying to shake Mikasa with her gaze.

"What if I'm wrong? What if it's his psychology that's fucked up and the weed wakes him up to it? What if all that fucked-up shit's inside him all along, and the chemicals wipe away the consciousness suppressing it and so it seeps up and that's what makes him hurt hisself? What if that's the real him, and it's been trickling up, and one day, it's gone come out some way?"

"You believe that?"

"I don't know what I believe. All I know is, you never what people will do till they do it."

Noralis sat, thinking, and Mikasa watched her as she thought.

"This other time the skin on his knuckles was all gone and raw, like he been hitting at a brick wall and when I asked him about it, he didn't tell me what he done. He rolls his eyes at me and says, 'it's fine, Nora, don't make a big deal out of nothing like you always do.' He thinks I like to stir the pot and blow things out of proportion." Her bare shoulders shrugged hugely. "I do but like— not with this kind of particular situation. He's deflecting. He just don't want to face hisself and he's trying to make me out to be the crazy one." Her eyes were sharp and precise, birdlike, as if she was up high, above the rest of them, looking down.

"It's been two, three months since he done anything that I know of. I figured he was through with all that psycho stuff. We stopped fucking with weed, and I thought he was better. But who knows? Lately he just mopes around and sleeps. But if he's going back to being like he was . . ."

She started to cry into her hands again.

"It's all right," Mikasa said. "I've known Eren for a long time. He's neurotic and he's got an unpredictable temper. He's always been his own worst enemy." The ballroom was almost stripped of all the streamers and frills now. The gifts had been packed away. Some of the family still lingered, chatting. Concerned glances fell on Noralis every now and again. "But he has his parents and his friends looking out for him," said Mikasa. "And he's got you."

Slowly Noralis stopped crying.

"Can you take him home?" Noralis rubbed her cheeks. The eye-makeup smeared hopelessly. "I know I was being bitchy bout it before. It's just, you and him got special history, and it makes me a teensy-bit jealous." She showed Mikasa between her fingers a small half-inch of jealousy. "But I know he try to act better in front of people he thinks highly of. And he's always going on about you and Armin, like neither of you could do any wrong. I swear to God." Her lips took on a smile of twisted affection. "He seen my ugly. I seen his ugly. And we been together too long to try and hide the ugly." Then she bowed her head, her hands clasped in her lap. "You should probably go find him before he do something real dumb."

Mikasa moved her feet again. The ballroom's laminate flooring went away. Her shoes fell soundless against the hallway carpet.

"Wait. Mikasa." Noralis held herself against the hall's entrance. Her dress wilted from her frame like dying flower petals. "Don't tell him we talked. Don't tell him I told you anything. He'll hate me. I swear to God, he'll never forgive me."

Mikasa nodded. "Okay."

Outside the restroom, Eren was set in a sitting position against the wall. He was a ragdoll, just thread and brokenness, his head sagged over. The pomade in his hair had dissolved away. Mikasa crouched and spoke to him gently. His head remained sagged over. His eyes remained closed.

"Stay there a minute," Mikasa said, and inspected his face, looking to see if what she said registered. "I need to make a phone call. I'll be right back." There was no sign he heard her. She waited, but he made no movements.

At the other end of the hall, she inputted her cousin's number. She stuck the phone to her ear. On the second ring, he picked up.

"Hello?"

"I don't need a ride anymore," she said.

"What do you mean 'you don't need a ride?'"

"I'm going to drive Eren's car and walk myself home from his place."

"That little shit shouldn't have been drinking. He should've been more responsible than that. Stop scratching. I can hear it over the phone."

Her hand dropped to her side. Mikasa's cousin let go a sigh. Mikasa knew it wasn't really a sigh.

"I'm coming to get the both of you. And while I'm at it, I'll whoop his little ass," he said.

"Something's going on with him. I'll explain later."

"I'm already here." A cigarette mumbled her cousin's talking. "Look. I don't want you walking around alone at night. I'm giving you a lift from the Jaeger's. A'ight?"

The call ended.

Putting her phone away in her purse, she slung the chain over her shoulder and went back down the hall to Eren. She took him by the armpit. His rag-limbs rolled out of her grip. She grabbed at him again but, before she could even muster any strength to hoist him from the floor, the slack-muscled weight threw her out of balance. She struck the wall on her palms. She caught herself.

"Come on, Eren. I can't carry you." She squatted and touched his shoulder. She moved her hand back and forth. He stirred. Sightless red eyes came open and rolled back into the sockets. "Eren?"

His string-legs began to fix themselves, and the brokenness set and clinched and he bunched up on his arms, rising. His eyes held confusion and drunken glassiness and a hot, vague panic. He stood on his feet and felt the motionless floor tilting to the right. His feet staggered sideways. Mikasa held and straightened him. Hooking his arm on her shoulder, Mikasa began to walk his fevered perspiring body out the door.

Outside, the parking lot was practically empty. Under the streetlight was Eren's Honda; next to it was an old low-sitting Grand Marquis. A man leaned against it. He was a compact man with compact muscles wrought from the two years he spent in prison. Mikasa's cousin watched them cross the lot, a cigarette jammed in his teeth. It blazed orange then dimmed. He flicked it, a miniature wishing star, and it dropped, extinguished, to the ground.

He met them halfway across the lot and ducking under Eren's left arm, he strapped Eren's other half-weight across his shoulders.

"You disgust me," he told Eren.

"Levi," said Mikasa.

"How the hell'd you get so disgustingly big?"

Eren picked up his own head and looked at Levi and, slowly, recognition came in his eyes like a diffusing ink blot and he smiled. Lurching off Mikasa, he reached onto Levi. "He-e-y," and collected Levi into a hug. "When'd you get here? You weren't here the whole time."

"You're lucky I wasn't."

Eren gripped Levi and his face grew contorted and suffering like he was about to cry. Under the pounds of prison muscle, Levi's bones creaked with pressure.

"What's gotten into you?" said Mikasa.

"It's just—" Eren miserably wrung the air out of Levi. "I missed you guys. You and Levi and Armin, and everybody. You're the most important people in the whole world to me." Gripping Levi to his chest, he slowly, slowly suffered.

"All right. That's enough." Levi dragged Eren by the back of the shirt. "Get your ass in the car."

"Wait."

Levi waited. A young twenty-something couple came out of the event center. They shot a curious glance at the three under the streetlight as they made their way across the lot. They got into a vehicle and left. Eren took his arms away. The ground, apparently, was moving under his feet, swaying him where he stood.

Eren opened the car door, about to get in.

"That's _my_ car," said Levi.

Eren shut the door and swayed to his Honda. He crumpled into the passenger side. Then, as if he were made only of string and nothingness, his frame sighed and collapsed against the seat, asleep.

Mikasa and Levi watched, both thinking similar thoughts. "Shi-i-t." Levi took out a cigarette carton, shook one out. He grabbed a lighter and bent his head. The filter mumbled in his mouth. "Him squeezing the guts out of me. What's the matter with him?" He snapped the lighter and burned the cigarette. He dragged thoughtfully.

"I think he misses how things used to be," said Mikasa.

Ash peppered the ground. Levi started to his car. He called over the roof. "I'm following you. Watch that lead-foot," he said. "I seen how you drive."

After taking Eren home and putting him to bed, Levi drove Mikasa two streets over, to the Ackerman house. His car clattered junkily. It was a good car, a reliable car, he would say. Mikasa knew he couldn't afford a new one. He let his breath out the window.

"What's that brat got to be sad about?" Levi said.

"You think he's sad?"

"You should know. People like us know. We recognize it like we're staring into a bucket of water, seeing our own reflection."

"How long's it been since you last slept?"

Levi had dark circles under his eyes. They'd been anchored into his face since 1997.

"You trying to be smart with me?" he said

"No."

"That's what I thought." He slapped his elbow.

"His girlfriend told me a couple things that have me worried."

"Yeah? Like what?"

Mikasa told him the stories and Levi listened and pulled into the Ackerman driveway. The car grated and screamed as he parked, vibrated idly as they sat in it. Halfway to the filter, his cigarette burned. When Mikasa was finished, he breathed out wise dragon-smoke and prepared to say something very wise and ancient, and he said: "Shi-i-t."

"That's not helpful," said Mikasa.

"He's a teenager. Teenagers indulge in irrational self-destructive behavior. They're psychotics."

"That's equally unhelpful."

"He still screwing her?"

"Oh, my god."

"Don't worry too much if he's still got the energy to be a nasty motherfucker."

"Sounds like you know from experience."

"We're not talking about me."

"Doesn't smoking affect your you-know-what?" Mikasa whispered it.

"Get out."

"Thanks for taking me home." They'd been idled in front of the Ackerman house for almost ten minutes. Mikasa started to remove herself from the vehicle.

"Listen," Levi said. He leaned across the console. "Whatever's going on with you, or Eren, or whoever, my door's always open."

"Hanji's door, you mean."

"I'll get my own place soon. You'll see."

"You'll never move out. She'll never let you. You're basically her B. I. T. C. H."

"What is this, _Sesame Street?_ Why'd you spell it?"

"Let me ask you something," Mikasa said. "Why haven't you married Hanji, already? It's been four years."

"Hey." Levi tore the cigarette from his lips and stabbed it at her. "You are a child. And these are adult matters. So take your ridiculous unhelpful, _unwelcomed_, childish opinions," he said, "and shove them up your A.S.S."

"I'm not a child. You're a child."

"That's exactly what I'd expect from an infant." He filed the cigarette into the corner of his mouth. "Run along, now, kiddo. Don't keep your good ole buddy Big Bird waiting."

The window slid up. The old clattery car whimpered down the driveway.

September

The seating arrangement in Art I had been shuffled around. Now sitting in the back corner, Mikasa shared a table with a boy she didn't know. He had black hair and a watery pigmentation. His mouth and eyelids were purple, and he had a long jut of a nose with large nostrils. If he'd been enrolled in Art I since the beginning, she couldn't remember.

The class had until Friday to turn in their pencil projects.

Mikasa worked with her 2H pencil and, from there, gradually upped her grade as she brought forth coarse orangutan fur and lucid, soulful eyes. The pale boy next to her had his art project placed between his hands, staring at it. His eyes were like punched-out paper. Empty on the other side.

Mikasa went to the teacher. She asked him to show her how to shade the fur. He demonstrated and she sat back down, emulating what she watched him do.

For ten minutes, Mikasa worked. Next to her, the boy she didn't know didn't move. Mikasa looked at him. His face was small and depthless. She looked at his art project. It was a wolf, small and depthless too. For ten more minutes, Mikasa worked. For those ten more minutes, the boy sat in the same position with the same pose as if he were a wax figure in a museum and Mikasa imagined dust falling onto his arms and the back of his neck in a fine coat, and still he never moved.

"Do you want to use my pencils?" Mikasa said, finally.

The boy blinked. He didn't look at her.

"You should start with the lightest one." Mikasa set her 4H pencil next to his hand. His nails were grown out and a thin line of dirt was jammed under them. He wove the pencil between his fingers and then stared at his sheet of paper through his empty punched-out eyes.

Mikasa continued working.

There was a light tap on her shoulder. She turned. She saw the boy's purple lips move slightly. The rest of his face remained immobile. Only his lips worked, as if the rest of him were still wax. Then his lips stopped moving and he waited.

"I'm sorry. I didn't hear you," Mikasa said.

The boy leaned a little closer. He spoke again in a whisper but the whisper was more silence than sound. She felt his breath and looked at his eyes and they diverted and slanted, looking down and away from her, never meeting another's gaze, straight.

"Does my wolf look okay?" he said.

"Yes," Mikasa said. "It looks nice."

He slowly nodded and slowly leaned back into his chair. He sat again in the same position as before, his hands rested on either side of his drawing. Mikasa thought about what had occurred and thought the way he moved seemed a little different, and the way he spoke seemed a little different, and the way his face never changed seemed a little different. But that was all okay and fine and she continued working.

At the table in front of Mikasa, two girls were speaking in low voices to each other.

"I hate the sound it makes." The blond one clapped her hands in an even rhythm. "It's gross."

"Maybe you don't like dick."

"_Ymir_."

"What?"

"Not so loud."

"Boner."

"Shush!"

"Penis."

There was another tap on Mikasa's shoulder. The boy at her table brought his mouth closer to her. His breath hit, cool, on her face.

"I'm sorry," said Mikasa. "Can you say that again?"

The boy started to speak and Mikasa ducked and leaned her ear into his voice, and caught most of what he said.

"—like your drawing," he whispered.

"Thank you," she said, and smiled, and leaned back over to her side.

He nodded slowly, expressionlessly, and stared at his paper. The 4H pencil rested, unemployed, in his hand. Mikasa worked. Instrumental music drifted from the teacher's desk. The windows on the west wall gave out onto the Senior parking lot. Sunshine blazed the black top into quivering waves. Mikasa rose from her seat.

"I'm getting an eraser. Would you like one too?"

She watched the boy stare at his paper and his hands moved slowly, doing nothing in particular. Then after some thought, he slowly nodded and she grabbed two erasers and sat back down and gave him one. He picked it up in his hand, holding it. His mouth moved. Mikasa read his lips.

"You're welcome," she replied.

Mikasa began to work again. When there was another tap on her shoulder and the boy leaned to the right, closer to her, Mikasa knew what to do and leaned to the left, closer to him. He put his voice next to her ear. She put her ear next to his voice.

"I'm Giovanni," he whispered.

"I'm Mikasa," she said.

He slowly nodded and slowly leaned back over to his side.

The bell rang.

"Bye, Giovanni. Nice meeting you."

Giovanni nodded and painstakingly began to pack up his belongings and file them into his backpack.

As Mikasa left out the door, she turned her head over her shoulder and watched, still walking, as Giovanni zipped up his backpack, his expression permanently enigmatic, his head tucked down, with nobody ever speaking to him or seeing him, as if he were only a temporary vision made-up by Mikasa's own mind.

# # #

"At some point during this period," Mr. K said, it was College Algebra, "there will be a lockdown drill. Please take it seriously. Remember, it's to prepare you for the real thing. On any day, at any time, someone could walk onto this campus with the intent to hurt as many of you as possible. Always remember that. Do you understand?"

Halfway into the class period, a voice came over the intercom: _We are now under lockdown_. Students robotically rose from their desks and soundlessly dispersed like worker ants. Mr. K opened the door, checked it was locked, shut it, and covered the peek window. A few girls threaded the blinds closed. Students at the front of the class barricaded desks and chairs in front of the door. Textbooks and laptops were grabbed as weapons. The larger boys stood nearest to the door with their large bodies and their large fists. The rest crouched, huddled, in the far back of the room. A few girls hid in the back closet. Two girls had picked up the teacher's two pairs of scissors and had them ready in their grip. The class waited. Some students shifted their textbook-weapons nervously in their hands.

A voice came onto the intercom again: _Lockdown is over. I repeat. Lockdown is over_.

Nobody moved. Mr. K shook his head, put a finger to his mouth. They were silent, very grave, very grim. They were as still as soldiers packed into an old train, transporting them across the continent, feeding them to the frontlines of a Civil War. Ready to fight together, ready to die together, at sixteen, seventeen years old. Some of them younger than that, even.

Somewhere on campus, Eren Jaeger's hands started to shake. He gripped them until they locked.

September

The late September sky was hot and bushy, full of hot rain.

Mikasa laced up her running shoes. She put little buds in her ears. Tiny music came from the speakers. It was six o' clock and simmering outside. Insects buzzed one endless note. Everything was motionless and dreadful with heat and rain.

A car cut up next to her. Mikasa sprang into the grass. Her heartbeat flew into her ears. The driver's window came down. Behind the wheel was Eren. His sunglasses shined with the afternoon sun.

"What's up?" he said.

Mikasa felt her heartbeat diminish back into her chest. She approached the window. AC cooled the sweat on her face. "Hey," she said. "You scared me."

Mikasa looked past him and saw his girlfriend in the passenger seat. Noralis stretched over the console and spoke across Eren's chest. "Mikasa, girl, you are too much." Her curls were tied back. Her gold earrings dangled like tassels. "Me and this lil jit—" she slapped Eren's thigh— "is taking a trip to Fat Guys—"

"Five Guys—" said Eren.

"And I'm fixin to personally deliver you a fully loaded burger, extra fry, 'cause that bony butt definitely needs it."

"Thanks." Mikasa backed away from the window. "But Eren can have my burger."

"Ay-ee." Eren gestured with his fist. Mikasa ignored him and screwed her ear phones back into place. The sun glared on Eren's sunglasses. "Hit me up later," he said.

Noralis waved.

The car zipped off and fishtailed around the corner.

"Ay-ee," Mikasa muttered, and mocked Eren in her deepest, dumbest Eren-voice. She already knew she wouldn't hit him up later.

As Mikasa's sneakers hit the asphalt, her mind dug roots into her deepest thoughts and sapped nutrients from the earth's core. Running, breathing, sweating, she thought, and thought, and she suddenly remembered the steep irreversible change of Eren Jaeger.

At fifteen, he had experienced metamorphosis. His backbone had stretched out, impossibly. New muscles were heaped over his skeleton. So when school started again, he was treated differently. Curiosity fluttered over to him like moths inspecting the small beams of illumination he now gave off.

Then, not much later, each time Eren walked the school sidewalks, waves of curiosity and interest would flock him, whispering their wings, ruffling his hair, tickling his ears, whipping up giant thundering winds that blustered his clothes in a thousand whispers spreading myths about this new evolved Eren Jaeger.

It must've been exciting for him, Mikasa thought. Being the center of attention after he'd spent all those other years being invisible.

But now he drives too fast, she thought, still running, remembering, and he doesn't seem to think about where he's going, hurtling down the highway into the horizon with the windows rolled down, his sunglasses burning with a ferocious red light, the tires wheeling so fast they might lift from the road and fly him straight, crashing, into the sun.

Ahead on the road came a gray mound. Curving around it, Mikasa looked to see what it was.

A rabbit was flattened, mushed to the asphalt. No blood. No guts spewing out. Beaten into a naked gray leather-thing. Not even the vultures ventured at the strange gray putty stuck to the street.

For four days straight, she passed the squashed hairless rabbit, dead in the road.

September

Connie and Sasha ate the untouched food stacking Mikasa's school lunch tray.

"Why don't you just bring your lunch?" Armin said.

"I don't feel like it," Mikasa said.

"Have you talked to Eren lately?"

"Not really since Cassandra's _Quinceañera_."

Armin ate cold pasta from Tupperware. "Don't feel bad about it. At least you tried."

Mikasa looked up at Armin. "How come every time we talk about Eren, you get this condescending tone in your voice?"

"I never exactly tried to hide my feelings."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know if he knows it and I don't know if he means it. But Eren's a jerk, Mikasa. Ever since sophomore year, he stopped trying."

"That goes both ways."

"Yeah, maybe, I don't know." He shoveled pasta into his mouth. He chewed. He unscrewed his water thermos. "There are only a couple people I trust in my life. And for a long time, Eren was one of them. Then he started to get this idea that he was too good for us. And I got sick of being around somebody who made me feel like I was inferior."

"We never told him how we felt. If we talk to him—"

"Oh, no, I absolutely told him how I felt. Maybe you never said anything because when it comes to him, it's like you always walk on eggshells. But he and I had multiple conversations. It did nothing. So I'm over it. I've been over it. If he wants to go around, trying to be somebody else, then he's free to do that. And likewise, I'm free to cut ties and move on."

"Eren's not so bad when it's only him."

"Yeah. Isn't that funny?" Color rose in Armin's face. His voice was calm and detached. "He can't pull that bullgarbage on me anymore. I'm not buying it."

"Even at the _Quinceañera_, in front of all those people, he wasn't so bad. He wasn't trying to win anybody's approval or get their attention."

"Mikasa—"

"Remember how I was in middle school?" she went on quickly. "I used to lash out. But you forgave me for that."

"You were thirteen. And there's a lot going on with thirteen-year-olds."

"Look at where we are. It's senior year. Once we graduate, everything's going to change. And I'm afraid if we don't at least try to reconnect with Eren now, we'll regret it later. You and I wouldn't even be friends if it weren't for Eren."

"If you want to reconnect with Eren, go ahead and try to do that. That's fine." Armin finished his pasta. "But I don't have to do the same. I don't share your same feelings, Mikasa. I'm sorry, but I just don't." He packed the empty Tupperware into his backpack. "It's nothing against you. I know you want things to go back to how they used to be. When we were kids, the three of us had a lot of fun together. But that was then, and this is now. The moment we graduate, I'm leaving and I'm never coming back to this town."

"So you'll leave and forget about us? about me?"

"No. _No_. That's not at all what I was trying to—"

Something was happening around them. It was happening quickly. Like a giant wave collapsing itself toward land, a band of students crashed out of the cafeteria. There was a roar of scurrying shoes, of excited voices. The heads outside snapped up as students surged from the cafeteria doors, fumbling their phones from their pockets, stampeding across the courtyard, uplifting their cameras. Crashing and rolling over each other, bodies boiled like a thunderstorm and made a wall-barrier around two girls. The two girls plunged their hands into each other's hair and removed fistfuls. Around them, more students surged into the storm, necks straining over other heads, stretched onto toes for a view. A hundred phones were raised. A hundred undead eyes, recording the adolescent violence with an unblinking unconcern.

Shrieks of amusement rose and fell. There was a collective groan of disapproval.

A school resource officer jounced himself toward the swarm, clutching his utility belt. Groping past shoulders and heads, he was squeezed outside the wall of bodies. Students hotly crashed and boiled over each other, still encouraging, still laughing. "Move, get out of the way. Get out of the way!" The officer hunted for a weakness in the wall, clutching his belt.

Mikasa threw on her backpack and went toward the senior parking lot. Armin swiveled his head. He watched her leave.

Around the entire campus was a seven-foot chain link fence. It was meant to keep threats away. It also confined everybody inside. A few cars rolled into the senior parking lot, returned from an off-campus lunch. On her way to Building 1, Mikasa saw Eren walking across the parking lot, a pair of sunglasses clapped to his face.

Eren raised his hand and waved. Mikasa looked to her left. She looked to her right. She looked behind her. Seeing nobody else around, she lifted her hand and returned Eren's gesture. When he made it to the gate, Eren flashed his school I.D. A school resource officer let him in.

"Yeah, it was you I was waving at," Eren said. "Why'd you question it?"

"Sometimes I think you're waving at me, but it's the person behind me. Then I feel stupid."

"It's actually you I'm waving at. But the person behind you thinks it's them."

"That's not how it looks."

"That's how it is." They entered Building 1. Eren clapped off his sunglasses, hooking them to his shirt. "Where you going?"

"The library."

They came out the other side of Building 1. An outdoor awning blocked the sun, but the heat still tried to bake their skin. They crossed the sidewalk to the library and Mikasa opened the door and a cold exhalation of air conditioning coursed over them.

"You're coming in with me?" she said.

"Unless you don't want me to," he said.

"No, it's just. This is the library, you know."

"Wow." Eren shouldered inside. "You always know how to cut me down. What were you planning on doing here? I hope it wasn't reading."

They passed the librarian and her long knickknacked desk and walked to the line of tables in the back. Seated across from each other, Mikasa groped in her backpack. She and Eren were the only students in the library.

"I didn't come here to read, actually," Mikasa said. "My mom's cousins in Japan sent me this—" She took out a pink pencil case and a matching pink stationery set— "They also sent me some origami paper. My grandma taught me how to make a few things. I was going to practice."

She took out a sheet of decorative paper and placed it in front of herself. Then she took out a second sheet and placed it in front of Eren.

"You're going to learn how to make a paper crane."

"Dope." Eren leaned forward. His palms slid onto the table. "I'll probably crash and burn."

Mikasa demonstrated the first fold. Eren matched her. She made the second fold. He matched her. They continued like that.

"Can you show me that again?"

Mikasa showed him again, slowing down. Slowly he did the same. When she was finished, Mikasa blew into her crane's belly. Eren blew air into his own crane and they placed their finished inflated cranes together on the table.

"Yours looks ten times better than mine," Eren said. "How'd you get it so perfect?"

"Repetition."

"I think it's your hands, too. You've got piano-fingers."

Mikasa looked down at her hands and as she saw them in front of her, she felt good about them. They watched their cranes, midflight, on the table.

"I don't remember anything of what we just did," Eren said. "You'll have to teach it to me again."

"You can keep the cranes," she said.

"Yes-s." He took out his school folder. He began to gently compress the cranes to fit inside.

"Um—"

Eren looked up.

"Actually, can I have the crane you made?" He stared. She recanted. "No, never mind. You keep it, it's yours. You made it and everything."

"No, I don't care. Here. Take it."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah. Definitely."

She cupped the paper crane in her hand, bent her head, and watched it swim in the waves of her palm.

"It's good, Eren. You did good." Her mouth, she felt, was smiling. Perched lightly in her palm, the crane had no weight behind it, no groundedness. Its paper-wings would whisper from her hand and she'd have to chase the crane among the clouds.

Lunch ended.

Eren walked Mikasa out of the library. They had different classes and faced each other. They got ready to say goodbye.

"Thanks for that," Eren said. "That was fun."

"Oh." Mikasa looked at his eyes and felt herself, strangely, falling into them. "Sure."

They went in opposite directions. Then, behind her, she heard her name being called. She looked over her shoulder. Eren was tall over the other heads, his hand stuck in the air. He waved.

September

Their town's Books-A-Million had the same rural downgrade that all the other local retail chains had. A shoddiness. A reduced stock for a lower demand. It smelled like old carpet. Poor ventilation impregnated the walls. Two employees worked the floor. A barista stood behind a deserted café bar. Three listless customers moseyed the shelves.

Mikasa clutched Armin by the elbow. "Armin." Her voice was low and serious. "I'm getting this weird feeling."

"What kind of weird feeling?" He matched her seriousness.

"I don't know. It's like someone or something's trying to send me a message. I can't explain it." She pulled Armin forward.

"Where are we going?" he said.

"I don't know."

"What do you mean 'you don't know?'"

"I don't know." Her legs were leading and she pulled Armin next to her. Her legs took them down aisle after aisle. "I never told you this before because you'd think I was crazy. But, sometimes," she whispered, "it's like I get these visions or signs from another place."

"What are you talking about? What kind of place?"

"Shh." Her legs brought them to a bookshelf. Then her legs stopped and fixed to the spot. Her hands took over and began to lead. They darted out, snatching up a book from the shelf.

"This is it," Mikasa said whisperingly. "This book is trying to tell me something." Mikasa looked through her eyelashes at Armin. "It's about you." She flipped the book around and showed him the cover. Armin stared.

"_Is He Or Isn't He?_" Mikasa read. "Which team does the boy-next-door bat for?"

"Wow." Armin rolled his eyes. "You're so funny. I'm dying 'cause you're so funny." He scanned the books. "Guess what? I'm psychic too. And another dimension told me that— this is you—" He seized a book from the shelf. _Frankenstein's Daughter_, it said.

Mikasa drew her fist, Armin caught it against his palm. They choreographed a fistfight. Mikasa swung again. Armin doubled over and clutched his stomach. Straightening, they replaced the removed books to their proper shelf-spaces. Mikasa's book slipped in beside a novel with a handwritten-scrawled title. Her eyes locked to it. She didn't know why. Kneading her ear lobe, Mikasa rolled her piercings around in her fingers. Armin was walking away.

"I'm going to the café," he said. "You want anything?"

"Coffee," she said. "Black." Her eyes stayed on the book.

"I knew that. I don't know why I asked."

"Thanks, Armin. I'll pay you back."

"No thanks."

Mikasa touched the book's spine. The hair on her wrist bristled like antennae. _No Time to Say Goodbye, _it said_._ She scooped up her bag, slung it over her shoulder. She walked away and found the Manga section.

For an hour, Armin and Mikasa sat in the café. Armin fished through World War II Trivia, drinking something frozen and sugary. Mikasa raced through a horror Japanese Graphic Novel, guzzling down black coffee.

"Armin, have you ever wondered if maybe I'm lesbian?"

Armin's glasses had drooped on his nose. "Are you?"

"I don't think so."

"Why would you ask, then?"

"I'm just asking if you ever wondered."

"No. You just seemed indifferent about all of it."

"I don't know what to think about myself anymore. How come I'm never interested?"

"Are you feeling pressured to be in a relationship?"

"I don't know."

"Sometimes it feels like we're the only two people at Lake Valley High who've never been in a relationship." Armin shrugged and flipped the page in his book. "But I don't dwell on stuff like that."

"We're such losers with a capital L."

They laughed at themselves. They laughed at each other.

"I'd rather read horror stories." Mikasa looked down at her graphic novel.

"What was the name of the largest battleship of World War II?" Armin said.

"The Mayflower."

"You can't be serious."

"You mean the Pilgrims didn't fight in World War II?"

Armin clicked his tongue. "The largest battleship was from Imperial Japan. It was named, Yuhmuhtoe."

"_Yamato_," Mikasa said.

"Yuhmuhtoe."

"Ya. Ma. To." Mikasa enunciated it.

"_Yamato_."

"Nice. A plus."

"The largest World War II battleships were _Yamato_," Armin continued, "and her sister ship Moosuhsheye."

"_Musashi_."

After an hour, they left the sad sweaty downgraded store and got into Mikasa's vehicle. The car turned onto the highway, merging with the downtown traffic. The sun had set but a cast of light still hung in the sky.

In a small dilapidated plaza was a crowd of people. They were crammed in front of a local coffee shop, moving back and forth_. _Then Mikasa saw the live band performing. Her hand pulled the wheel and they cut off the highway, into the crumbling parking lot.

"What the heck?" Armin held himself against the dash, gasping. "Are you trying to _kill_ us?"

"Sorry."

"What are we doing here?"

"I wanted to check out the band."

"I don't."

"Oh, come on." Mikasa smiled. "We don't have to stay long."

Armin sighed and threw the door open. He got out. Mikasa followed. With a wary curiosity, they approached the coffee shop. A crowd of thirty or so people clumped under a veil of Christmas lights. The band was on intermission now. The members inspected their instruments, adjusted their sound system. There was a hand-drawn banner with their band name on it: The Sunshine Kids.

"Isn't that your cousin?" Armin pointed.

"We're not blood-related," said Mikasa.

"Nice try."

Levi was outside, leaning against the coffee shop. He was kissing a burning cigarette, wearing a short-sleeved shirt so his arms were bare. Countless pictures were ink-scarred into his skin. Drizzled red roses with soft moist petals and crystal stars and oceans, religion and science, math and history, a constellation of illustrations stabbed into his body by motorized needles.

Armin and Mikasa went to him.

"You blend right in," said Mikasa.

"I've never been more insulted in all my life," said Levi. "Hey, kid."

"Hey," said Armin.

"Nice polo."

"Oh." Armin looked down at his polo. "I thought it was okay."

"Don't listen to him," said Mikasa. "What's he know? Everybody here's basically his clone."

Levi mumbled unintelligibly and his cigarette burned hotter. "What are you even doing here?" He spat out smoke, grinded his shoe heel.

"What are _you_ even doing here?" said Mikasa.

"That." He nodded his head. Mikasa's eyes followed the motion and tore across the black top over to a woman with a tatty pony-tail, wire-framed glasses, and large teeth. This was Hanji Zoe, the woman Levi had been living with for four years. "And if she don't get back over here, she'll have to walk her own pitiful ass home."

"You wouldn't leave her," Mikasa said.

"Yes, I would."

"No, you wouldn't."

Saying nothing, Levi strode across the parking lot and ducked into his low-slung Grand Marquis. The headlights snapped on.

"He's leaving," Armin said. In vague surprised unsurprise, they watched the car clatter away and putter onto the highway. "We should probably tell Hanji."

The band took their positions. The singer said a few things into the mic. The band began to play. Mikasa and Armin wove through the twenty, thirty teenagers and the coordinated sway of their bodies. There was a distinctive sweet odor hanging in the air. Hanji was at the front.

"Hanji."

"Mikasa!" Hanji turned her one good eye on Mikasa and smiled. The glass prosthetic stared slightly past Mikasa, past Armin, into the incomprehensible half-world slightly past and between all-things. "Armin! What are you guys doing here?"

"Levi left."

"What?"

"Levi left. He drove off."

"What?"

Mikasa and Armin jerked their hands to their ears. Hanji, expecting the sudden blast of noise, whirled around, her hands raised above her head, moving in coordination with the twenty, thirty others.

_BURN IT ALL DOWN_, the singer screamed_. THIS IS THE END!_

"It's so angry and angsty," Hanji shouted over the noise. "It makes me want to laugh. But it also makes want to do this—" She aggressively flung her arms around in strange shapes. Mikasa and Armin stepped back and gave her a wider range. The two looked at each other and communicated telepathically, empathizing with each other's secondhand embarrassment. 

_THIS IS THE GRAVE YOU MADE,_ the singer snarled. _SO SHUT YOUR GODDAMN MOUTH, AND FUCKING LIE IN IT._

The vocalist raised her hand. The crowd copied and shot their fists into the air. They all stabbed the universe with their middle fingers.

Everybody shouted together two explosive words: _FUCK YOU._

Twenty, thirty heads slammed forward and hair of every hue sprayed out. Mikasa imagined their brains sloshing back-and-forth in their skull-jelly.

Then everybody stilled. Everybody quieted.

Then everybody flung their limbs and began to thrash around, harder than before.

In the pit of bodies and limbs and head-banging, Hanji's glasses were slapped from her face. A tall lanky guilty boy apologized: "Oh shit, dude. I'm so-o-o sorry."

Hanji, Mikasa, and Armin fell to their hands and knees, groping at the ground. Hanji located her glasses between pairs of bouncing feet. A tattooed hand beat her to them. She looked up and met Levi's gaze. Slowly, together, they rose. He slid the glasses upon her face and fit them symmetrically on her nose.

"You came back?" Hanji said, astonished.

"You're hopeless without me." Levi took her chin and tilted her face, inspecting the red mark on her right eye.

"I'm fine. It's fine. Stop being a worrywart. You'll get high blood pressure." She twisted her face one way then the other, squirming away from his hands and doctor's scrutiny. "Stop. _Stop_." She swatted at him.

"I'll stop worrying when you stop giving me reasons to worry. If I get high blood pressure, it's your fault."

She swatted at him and he grabbed her wrists. She wriggled loose and swatted him again. He caught her wrists. They wrestled each other.

For a moment, Mikasa and Armin watched. They cringed. Slowly, inconspicuously, they backed away. "Looks like you're busy," said Mikasa. "Armin and I are headed out." She nudged him.

"Yeah," Armin said. "We'll see you—" They took off, rushing out of the crowd into the parking lot, running. "Hurry up, Mikasa."

Mikasa unlocked the car from across the lot. The headlights winked on. Armin ran to the passenger side. He scrambled for the door handle and pulled. A hand caught it. The door fell shut. His head circled around.

In front of him stood an unfamiliar girl. Her hand kept him from getting in the car. Her hair was yellow, her eyes were blue and savagely outlined in black.

"Um?"

"Sorry," she muttered. "You ran off and I— Here." She stuffed a napkin into his hand. As quickly and unannounced as she had appeared, she was gone and back at the coffee shop. The air buzzed where she'd been standing.

Armin brought the napkin under his eyes. A phone number was hastily penned on it.

Armin's neck rashed over. "What?" He stared at Mikasa in the car, bewildered. "Is she messing with me?"

"I don't think so." Mikasa started the engine. Armin gazed at the coffee shop with large boyishly earnest eyes. "Hey, stud. Are you going to get in the car?"

Armin got in and shut the door. Gradually the warmth shriveled away. Behind his glasses, his eyes developed a deep-frozen seal.

"What'd you think of her?" said Mikasa.

"I don't know. I don't think I was thinking anything." He crumpled the napkin and balled it into the cup holder. "She's messing with me."

"Why would she mess with you?"

"'Cause of my face and general demeanor." He turned his face and opened his hands, and showed her Armin Arlert. A bony boy with overgrown blond hair, glasses, pink skin, and an outfit put together from displaced clothes in the muddled racks of Goodwill. "I'm a walking invitation for physical and verbal harassment," he said.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Yes, you do. It's not like this is the first time a girl has walked up to me while I was minding my own business and pretended to like me, just so she could make fun of me behind my back."

"That's what middle school girls do."

"And high school girls. And maybe adult girls too. Girls like to bully guys like me."

"I don't think that's what she was doing." Mikasa looked at him. With an impervious, frozen stare, he watched the night road ahead of them. "I think she honestly likes you."

"You know what? It doesn't really matter. There's too much going on right now, anyway."

"With your grandpa?"

"Yeah, that, and college applications; and looking for scholarships; and doing volunteer hours; and working at the Deli. I hardly have time to sleep anymore. I don't have time for anything anymore."

"We could scout for scholarships together. It might help having another pair of eyes."

"That's a good idea. Can we plan a day for that?"

"A date?"

"A _day_."

"Right now?"

"It'll never happen if we don't plan it right now."

They discussed their schedules and set a day. She pulled into Orange Blossom Terrace Apartment Complex. The car crunched onto a dirt road. A lone figure wandered the sparse lawns, a shadow among shadows. Another figure glided across the unsodded lot with no visible destination, away from the houses, away from anything, from everything. The figure passed under a sole eerie streetlight, no more than a phantom, and disappeared into the black. The complex was an underworld of displaced wandering souls. Mikasa parked in front of apartment 7H.

"Thanks. See you tomorrow." The passenger door clicked. Mikasa rolled down the window.

"Armin," she called. "Wait. Armin. You forgot your napkin."

He turned, walking backward toward the front door. He pantomimed a pistol pressed to his temple. "I'd rather shoot myself than let some random girl make a clown out of me."

Shouts came from an apartment on the other side of the small complex. There was a thud and a crash of violence. Armin didn't hear it, or maybe he did but he'd grown too familiar with it, and turned around and pocketed his pantomimed pistol. He went inside the apartment and Mikasa, watching the front door, waited for some time before driving away.

# # #

It was some time after 9 PM when Mikasa's phone vibrated. A new message ballooned on her screen. It was from Eren Jaeger.

_Ni hao, Kai Lan_, it said.

A second message came in:

_F.B.I. OPEN UP_ 👊

A third:

_Hey. Uhhh I'm outside your window. Let me in… please _🙏

Mikasa went to her window and twisted the shutter wand. The wooden slats flattened and two unblinking eyes appeared, peering through the two-inch opening.

"Oh, god." Mikasa tugged the pull-cord. The blinds rose. She heaved the window open. "What the heck are you doing?" she hissed.

"Late night stopover," Eren hissed back.

"Yeah. But _why?_"

"I was bored." He ducked his head inside.

Mikasa pushed on his head, shoving him back outside. "Go away."

"Ow, ow, ow." Mikasa stopped pushing and he sat halfway in, halfway out. "You should let me in. I'm tired. I ran here."

"By cutting through ditches and backyards. So: Trespassing."

"Will you let me in?"

Mikasa took a step back. Eren crawled the rest of the way through. He bent down, removed his shoes. Then he laid down on her bed, his fingers laced behind his neck.

"The only other time I ever did this was—"

"Kickball," said Mikasa. She locked her bedroom door and sat down beside Eren. They whispered to each other. "You don't have to remind me."

"You still have this?" Eren took the stuffed toy laying among her pillows and sat up. Above its tail was a penny-sized hole. Eren poked at it with his forefinger. "It's been eight years and you still haven't sewn it up."

"Stop digging your finger in it."

He held the bunny rabbit to his face and stared it in the black-bead eye. "Are bunnies your favorite animal or something?"

"No. Elephants are my favorite animal."

"'Cause they have perfect memory?" He put the bunny rabbit back against her pillows and sat with his legs crossed. "Nora says you haven't added her back on Snapchat. Or was it Instagram—"

"I'm not really present on social media."

"I noticed. Is there a reason?"

"It's virtual noise to me and—" Mikasa put her hands over her ears. She lowered them. "Everything's loud enough."

Mikasa spun around and crossed her legs too. They faced each other. The ceiling fan whirred slowly above their heads. Eren smelled of nighttime wilderness. An owl plaintively crooned off and on again. In the kitchen, there was the clatter of dishes and silverware, the spray of a faucet. Her parents' voices came muted through the closed bedroom door.

"I was thinking," Mikasa said. "Maybe you should talk to Armin and do something with just the two of you."

"Uh-h-h . . . Are you trying to set me up on a play-date? 'Cause you're not my mom," Eren said. "First of all, you're Asian."

"Shut up." Mikasa swung a pillow. Eren ducked. The pillow whiffed through empty air and Mikasa lowered her tone. "Armin's gotten pretty cynical. I think he might be going through something."

"If he's having a hard time, I'm exactly the wrong person to try to help him get past it. He doesn't even like me."

"He does. Even if he acts cold. You're his best friend."

"We _were_ best friends," Eren said. "Nobody likes growing up. But it's happening right in front of us."

"You and Armin both talk to me like you know better than I do. Sometimes it feels like you're both talking down to me. But—"

"But, what?"

"It's like that game of kickball. All you wanted was to play the game and it made you blind to everything else that was going on. You have tunnel vision. That part of you hasn't changed."

Mikasa felt herself shaking her head. A river roared far away inside her mind and she could feel it rolling toward her, removing the dust from her memories. She was starting to remember seventh grade. She was starting to remember all the things that went wrong in seventh grade.

"I had to find out from L.T. what Cody did to make you snap like that, you know."

Mikasa's head stopped shaking for a moment. For a moment, she looked at Eren. "What did he say?"

Eren told her what L.T. said and Mikasa imagined she could see the baseball field as L.T. saw it. She imagined she could see herself as L.T. did. A girl of mostly legs and clay-caked bare feet, swamped in an oversize T-shirt.

"Oh." Mikasa heard her own voice like glass crashing to the ground from three stories high. "Cody kept messing with me and I kept telling him to stop but he wouldn't stop. And you were too focused on the game to notice," she said. "Tunnel vision," she said.

The river in her head grew louder.

Eren picked at her bedding and watched his hands. She watched his hands too. Then his hands reached over and touched her knee. Her leg ceased jittering.

"I wanted to tell you I was sorry," he said. "That's what I was supposed to say when I snuck in to see you that night. But once we were face to face, I couldn't even say what I wanted to say."

They sat, facing each other, crossed-legged. Then they tried to break the silence at the same time.

"I don't think that's—"

"But at least you—" Eren looked up at her. Mikasa looked up at him. Both their heads were lowered pensively. "Sorry. What were you going to say?"

"Nothing," she said. "You go ahead."

"I was just saying: At least, you hit him good. And he ended up right where we all knew he was going to be." He popped his knuckles. Then he pushed on his jaw, right then left. Then he twisted his torso, pulling on his spine, one way then the other, winding himself in knots until his bones sounded. "It was only a matter of time. You know? Once he got away with one thing, he'd do something worse. And when he got away with that, he'd do something worse than that. And the pattern kept repeating itself until he—"

"I don't want to talk about this anymore."

The river in her head was rattling down a hill, crashing toward her, in a stream of thoughts she suspected would come but never wanted to think. She'd thought the thoughts once when she was twelve and again when she was thirteen. Four years ago, she rationalized them away. Now here they were, rolling over her again.

In front of her, she saw her own hands, her wrists, and imagined the bones lying inside her flesh and they were long and gruesome, and once she became aware of her own bones, they started to ache and throb and hurt—

_It's late. That's why I can't think clearly. What Cody Gomez did wasn't that bad. It was a prank and we were kids. All he did was pull up my shirt and yank the back of my bra and it broke. And that's not that bad. I was humiliated and I hated him, and I hit him and we fought. But that wasn't that bad. It was just a stupid boy-prank. Boys play stupid pranks all the time. It was nothing. It was five years ago. It feels like yesterday. _

_The other boys dragged me off him and pinned me in the clay, and they got violent and angry because one of them got hit and they were four brothers, and brothers would murder for each other. What was Eren even doing? he was probably running in from second base, and it was just him and L.T. and L.T. was closer, running in from third, and when he got there, he took out his phone and Eren was still running—_

Cross-legged, Eren sat, not looking at her, just looking at his hands picking at her bedding.

Mikasa pulled up her legs. She held them to her chest. "Sometimes my feelings get scrambled up, and it's confusing and it builds up inside my head and it feels like I'm hanging upside down. I can hardly think."

Mikasa looked up and Eren had his head bent and caught her eyes and he understood, and she felt understood.

"It's okay," he said. "Whatever you're feeling, it's okay."

Somehow, that made the pressure gently trickle away and the river quieted.

Eren moved off her bed and moved to her keyboard. He removed the fabric sheet cover and pushed the power button. The screen glowed on. "Do you still play?"

"I haven't played in three years," she said.

"What? How come?"

"I suddenly stopped playing. Then three years passed. Now I've forgotten how."

"You haven't forgotten. You don't lose a skill like that."

Eren changed the settings and pressed a key and a man giggled from the speakers in F#. Eren pinched his nose. Mikasa watched his shoulders quiver. Veins pulsed from his temples and he died a little.

"Why's this an option?" he whispered tightly. He took a breath, revived himself, and turned off the keyboard. "When I graduate, I know my parents are going to throw a huge party 'cause my parents are _those_ parents. But it'd be nice if you could play something for everyone."

"_Eren_."

"Only me, then."

"Eren . . ."

"It's eight months from now. It could be 'Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star' for all I care. Think about it?" He brought his hands together and prayed. "Please?"

"I'll think about it."

Once Eren snuck back out and into the night and took all the laughter from the room with him, Mikasa closed her shutters and sat on the bed, and thought about Eren's request. Even if she wanted to play for him, how could she? She couldn't even play for herself.

There was a new text message from Eren: _Thanks for the talk._

Mikasa pulled the bench up to the keyboard, sat, and tried to get comfortable. She was not comfortable. Emotion started wake up deep deep in a gulf of her heart. She caressed her fingers across the keys. They set where they'd set once before, three years ago, and she felt the distance, the three years between her fingers and the keys. She felt the years between Armin and Eren and herself.

_—People grow apart. _

_—It's happening right in front of us. _

Taking her fingers from the keyboard, Mikasa opened the bench compartment and dug out a piano book among the loose pages of sheet music and binders and music theory compositions. A book. Dated back to 1950, published in Japan. Soft aged paper, stained. The emotion she felt slightly stronger now, floating up a little, somewhere in the gulf.

Mikasa opened the book and the pages fell automatically to "Für Elise." Her grandmother began to play, twelve years in the past, inside Mikasa's head. Mikasa, a little girl, sat on the piano bench beside her, watching the small, soft, knowledgeable hands stroke the keys.

Putting the book away, closing the bench, Mikasa laid the fabric cover down over the keyboard. For five months, she wouldn't touch it again.

Sitting back down on the bed, Mikasa took up the old stuffed bunny rabbit with the gaping hole of tufted cotton. She plunged her finger into it, feeling around. Inside, buried, a small slip of paper brushed her finger and she dug it out, rolled it open. She cringed, already knowing what it would tell, what it would disclose.

Written on the slip in the unpracticed oversized handwriting of a nine-year-old was a long-ago secret. An earth-shattering secret. Or so went the logic of a nine-year-old. Mikasa laughed and hid her face in her hands. She was embarrassed by her nine-year-old self.

Mikasa grabbed a pencil, tore off a strip of paper, and wrote now in the neat, compact script of a seventeen-year-old. When she was finished, she rolled it up and pushed it into the secret-enveloping cotton. Another secret. Another embarrassment.

She paused.

In the cotton, tucked deeply away, the size of a pill, was another slip of notebook paper. Mikasa probed it, fished it free, opened it. There was neat, compact script on it. Immediately, she recognized her own handwriting. After some thought, she couldn't remember writing what was written. She put the paper back where she'd found it and wondered about it for a while before getting ready for bed.

Later that night she dreamed a dream she'd had many times. There was a field that extended from horizon to horizon. Tall blowing grass, a white fence running down the middle Beginningless, endless. A high blue sky and the murmur of wind. Each morning, she never remembered a thing.

_No matter what I do, it always ends the same….._


	5. October

a/n: sorry for such long chapters and long updates. This is another 10.7K words. Not including author's note at the bottom

* * *

October

As always, autumn came late. The summer heat overstayed. Sometime around mid-October, the change in season finally began to waft in. The summer sun-showers clinging to the sky dissolved. The sky opened up. Nighttime would drop on the small rural town before anyone could see it coming.

One morning, the Lake Valley High 12th graders were funneled into the school's common area, piled into rows of chairs. There weren't enough for everyone. Student overflow lined the walls, sitting on the floor. Each student had a paper ballot, a pencil. Bags shuffled. Bodies shifted. Student whisperings made an ambient noise in the room like an incessant running faucet.

"Who are you voting for?"

"We're supposed to pick three people for king and three for queen."

"Can we vote for the same people three times?"

"Right?"

After the votes had been cast, the 12th graders returned to class.

That Friday afternoon the students who made Homecoming Court were announced. The names were listed alphabetically over the intercom. First were the ten female candidates for homecoming queen. Second came the nine male candidates for homecoming king. The tenth candidate for homecoming king wasn't, by anyone's definition, male. She identified as female and openly liked girls and wore her pants low-slung, her boy's underwear bunching out the waist.

Now the school became divided over a supposed social and moral issue. There were Yes people and No people, and Pro people and Anti people, and the people who gave a neutral shrug of their shoulders and carried on with their lives.

After the announcements were over, the teacher asked that somebody wake Eren up; the teacher also grumbled that if he wasn't awake to hear it, his place on Homecoming Court should be replaced by somebody who'd show more appreciation.

Eren was tapped on the shoulder. He lifted his head from his arms and blinked his foggy, sleep-pasted eyes. The bell rang. Eren slung on his backpack and dragged, sleep-walking, to the door.

October

Rain drove into the windshield of Grandpa Arlert's Chevy. Wipers parted the watery veil, _tsk-tsk_, for a second before another pattering wash streamed the glass again. Armin upped the tempo. The blades cut through the veil again, _tsk-tsk_, giving Armin a momentary view of the road ahead.

He turned onto a lazy boulevard. It led to the town's community college. Tuesdays and Thursdays, he attended classes there. As he swung around the bends, he saw on the side of the road, a pedestrian huddled inside their hood against the rain. On their back, they carried a guitar case.

Armin slowed. He pulled off the road and lowered the passenger window. The hooded figure turned. Inside the hood, a cold terrible glare waited for him.

"I'm sorry," he said immediately. "I didn't mean to bother you."

The girl kept walking. Armin rolled the car forward with her.

"Are you headed to campus? Do you want a ride? Is that a weird thing to ask?"

The girl stopped. She landed that cold terrible glare on him again.

"I'm sorry," he said. He knew he'd made a mistake. "I just felt bad. You're getting soaked. And your guitar, it's probably expensive."

The girl glared at him. Then she walked up to the car, still glaring at him the whole time, water dripping down her threatening face, and flung the door open. The car shook as she got in. She slammed it shut. She crammed the guitar case between him and her like a barricade.

The passenger seat grew slippery with rainwater. The window slid up. Armin swung back onto the road.

He saw the girl's legs sprawl out. She was wearing torn leggings, a skirt over them. Her feet squished around in drenched chunky combat boots.

When he pulled up to the front of the school, he idled the car in the roundabout. The girl didn't get out. Armin craned his head to the side, peering around the guitar case. The girl's profile was slanted against the window.

"Do you want me to drop you off somewhere else?"

Pale eyes struck him, hard, and something stirred inside his mind, behind a mental block. Makeup bled charcoal rivers down her face. She'd taken her hood off. Her blond hair clung to her neck.

"You don't recognize me, do you?" she said.

"I'm sorry. Have we met?" Something stirred again, like an itch he couldn't reach. The mental block didn't give.

"I couldn't care less about a guy who doesn't call," she said coldly. "But for you to look me straight in the eye, and you don't even remember my face? _Tch_." She snarled her upper lip. "Asshole."

The mental block exploded. "Oh, god." He slapped his forehead. "You're the girl from the coffee shop." His brain turned on and he rapidly began to retrieve, gather, and process information.

"You're a little late," she said.

"I'm so sorry." All the information processing through his head came in too rapidly and scrambled up into a disjointed excuse: "I've been sort of going through something and my mind's been all over the place, and it's not you, it's definitely not you. It's just, ever since middle school, it's been impossible for me to trust—"

"Whoa." She cut him off and made him silent. "I didn't ask for your life story."

Without saying anything, they sat in the car, studying each other past the guitar-case barricade. The rain fell like pellets and jumbled down the glass. Armin's face had been flaming for the last five minutes as her eyes seemed to touch every feature of his expression, and his too studied the topography of her nose and mouth and eyes, the black tearstains of makeup, the blond hair plastered to her skin in wet swirls.

"I'm Annie," she said.

"I'm Armin," he said.

"Is that your umbrella?" She waved to the back where his grandpa's umbrella was laying across the seats. "Want to walk together?"

"Yeah, sure, all right." Armin continued in the roundabout and headed for a parking space. He found a spot and cut the engine. After grabbing the umbrella, he walked around the car, lifting it over Annie as she slid off the seat and weightily contacted the ground in her waterlogged combat boots. He shut the door behind her.

Under a large red umbrella, they walked to the Student Union, side by side.

October

When Mikasa's mom said they'd be attending Mikasa's cousin's nineteenth birthday dinner, Mikasa asked if she had to go. Miyoko said Yes, she had to go. But we don't get along, said Mikasa. We are family, said Miyoko.

That was that.

"Is Dad coming?"

"He has to work today."

Naples was different from what Mikasa knew. The city was maintained, with luxurious grandiose architecture with elegant trimmings and such. A steady cash flow kept the city's blood pumping. The air breathed out the backwash from the Gulf of Mexico. The Hiruma family lived in a large contemporary house and the dinner party was held in their expansive backyard.

Mikasa looked out at the painting of people. The lawn was soft and green. The sun was setting. Miyoko put a hand on Mikasa's back and pressed her toward the gazebo where her cousins were sitting. Presents stacked a picnic table. A cake sat inside a glass platter. Fried chicken was served. They ate it with chopsticks.

"Happy Birthday, Brandon," Mikasa said. Brandon turned, glanced at Mikasa. He turned back to his friends and smiled conspiratorially at them.

"Hey, thanks, Mike." Brandon's friends sent silent messages through eye contact, grinning sideways at each other. "Isn't that how the teachers pronounce your name?"

"No. They pronounce it like Mikasa."

"Okay, Mike. Chicken's there, if you want any."

Mikasa's cousin claimed Brandon was only his Anglicized name, not his real name. His father, Miyoko's brother, Mikasa's uncle, had met a Japanese-American woman through a friend. They married a year later. Brandon's parents were of the same heritage, both second-generation. They gave the first of their two third-generation Japanese-American children the name Brandon. It was, in fact, the name on his birth certificate. Brandon resented this and his resentment prospered over the years. His younger sister, Samantha, (they called her Sammie) was not confused or offended by any identity-heritage disparity. She was Sammie Hiruma, and that was fine.

Mikasa sat next to Sammie and they spoke for some time. Then Sammie excused herself to visit with her maternal grandparents. Quietly Mikasa listened to Brandon and his friends talk. There were four of them.

"You know Amelia? That Filipino chick in our class?" The Asian boy speaking took in the unrecognizing expressions around him. "She's got long hair, dark skin. Glasses?"

"Yeah, yeah. I know who you mean."

"She DM'd me the other day."

The boys laughed. Their teeth smiled ugly malicious smiles.

"What's so funny?" Mikasa said.

"Nothing. She's Filipino."

"Why's that funny?"

The smiles drooped off their mouths. The boys shrugged. None of them answered her directly.

Brandon scoffed. "Filipinos are the Mexicans of Asians," he said. "It was a joke."

"Well, I don't get it," Mikasa said.

"That's because you have no Asian friends. All your friends are white."

"That's a wild assumption. What makes you think I have any friends?"

The boys said nothing, looking at her. Then they turned to each other, boxing her out of their view.

"There's a guy in my class who's half black, half Chinese." They leaned in, their faces conspiratorial and unpleasant, already laughing with their eyes. "You can't even tell he's Asian. He just looks Hispanic."

Shortly, cake was served and presents were opened. After an hour or so, the birthday dinner ended. The ride home was dark. Miyoko piloted her SUV down a back road, outmaneuvering city traffic. It was a two-hour drive back to Lake Valley. Mikasa watched the world go by. A shadow-church passed. A cemetery. The car radio was tuned into a Christian music station.

"Brandon thinks he's better than me," Mikasa said.

"Why does he think that?" said Miyoko.

"Because he's Asian."

"You're Asian. You're my daughter."

Mikasa sank her head against the window. "I feel like I'm wrong, somehow. Like I have no place."

Miyoko watched the road ahead. She had short hair and a tender feminine jaw. Her pearl earrings were a wardrobe staple. "Even though your dad and I are different," she said, "I know we belong together. And that's because we accept each other. When others accept you and you feel accepted, that's what it means to fit in and belong somewhere. It doesn't mean you have to be the same."

She went on: "Let's talk about your friends. Armin, for example. He's a small timid kid, smart as a whip, living by the projects under the care of his aging grandfather because his mother didn't want him and his father passed before he'd been born. Gives you some perspective, remembering where he comes from. Doesn't it?"

"Yes," Mikasa said. "I feel for him, I do. But how can I look at my own life through Armin's eyes if I'm me?"

"Well, hold on, Mikasa. I'm not done." Miyoko went on in her calm, gently wise voice. "Then there's your friend Eren. With a father who's mixed and a mother who's white, somehow along the way, Eren came out looking browner than the father he inherited the genes from. And while his father's mother, when she saw him, felt a surge of pride and love, 'he looks like me,' is what she said, I know this because Grisha told me about it; Carla's father was reminded of the internalized disdain toward Carla's husband, 'how'd he turn out looking that way?' is what he said, and I know this because Carla told me so.

"Carla's father could imagine faults in Eren that never existed, and simply because he couldn't bring any harm to the man his daughter married, he settled with the next closest thing, a child who was powerless to protect himself or understand the concept of prejudice. Carla had hoped Eren would be the bridge to bring the two families together. But that's not what happened."

"I've never heard you talk about Eren that way before," Mikasa said. "I never knew any of this. I just thought his grandpa used corporal punishment because of his background."

Miyoko's gaze remained on the road. "I've only understood their dynamic from a distance, hearing the things Grisha would say, hearing the things Carla would say, and watching with my own eyes how Eren seemed to be singled out for no apparent reason, other than the visible one. It's easy, almost innate, when you've experienced it yourself, identifying that prejudiced disdainful eye for what it is." Miyoko turned off the back road and onto a main road. Oncoming headlights struck Miyoko's face and filled the car. She squinted against the glare. "Your friends aren't like you. They couldn't be any more different from you. But they know you, and they chose to keep you in their company because of who you are." The headlights passed. The inside of the car went dark. Miyoko turned her face to Mikasa. She smiled. "You did the same with them. The place where you belong is the place you choose to be in."

They turned onto an overpass and merged with speeding traffic.

"Mom, when we get home, can you help me with something?"

# # #

Late in the night, it seemed like a good idea. But now it was in the middle of the school day and daylight illuminated all the uncertain disappointing things. She was nervous, sitting in front of Armin, wondering what to do with herself. She propped her elbows on the school picnic table and put her chin in her hands. She sighed.

"Is something wrong?" Armin said.

"No."

"Well, I'm going to jump in the lunch line now. The crowd's thinned out." He started to get up.

"Armin, wait." Mikasa sighed again and wrestled with herself. "I made lunch for you." Armin sat back down. Mikasa lifted her backpack onto the table and reached inside it and took up the _bento_ box. "I didn't make it by myself. My mom helped." Mikasa smothered out the embarrassment. "Here." She placed the _bento_ in front of Armin. "And here's chopstick, _chopsticks_. I don't know why I said it with an accent." Mikasa's skin crawled. "Is my face red?" She felt her cheeks.

"You look normal," Armin said. "Am I forgetting something? Is today a special occasion?"

"No," she said. "Are you sure it's not red?"

"It's not red. Why would it be red?" Armin lifted the lid. "It looks good," he said. His hand wafted the food-smell to his nose. "And it smells good too. Thank you. I'm always hungry by now, but I'm actually looking forward to eating today."

"I made one for Eren too." She took out a second box. "But I don't think I can give it to him. It's embarrassing."

"Why is it embarrassing?"

Mikasa touched her face. Her eyes cut down and away from Armin. "My mom said something this weekend that made me feel . . . sentimental?" She said it like a question, uncertain about everything. "I don't know. But expressing how I feel . . . I have a hard time doing that." Armin listened. His eyes were locked on her, inviting her without judgement or criticism. She went on: "I want us—you, me, and Eren—to be able to look back on our last year of high school together and talk about the good times we had. I'm sorry. I'm being too mushy."

"You can be mushy. There's nothing wrong with being mushy." Armin smiled. He swung his legs around. "I'll go find Eren. I'll be right back."

When Armin returned, Eren was next to him, wearing a Selena graphic tee and Nike high tops. Around his wrist was Noralis's velvet hair scrunchie.

"Armin says you're being a sappy loser again," he said.

Mikasa's mouth fell open. "Armin!"

"I didn't say that. I would never say that. I just told him you made us lunch. That's it. I swear." He held up his hands. Like Mikasa's, his mouth was open in surprise.

Eren sat down across from Mikasa. Armin sat beside Eren. Armin and Mikasa faced Eren, still surprised.

"Okay, so, he phrased it nothing like what I said. But I knew 'cause I know." Eren tapped his temple smartly. "Despite your standoffish reputation, you're actually a huge softie."

"Standoffish? That's what people think about me?"

"Don't worry about it. The people who matter know the truth." Eren covered his face with his hands and, opening them like a game of peek-a-boo, his face emerged again. "You're just a human-clam."

"Maybe I should spit saltwater in your eyes like a clam," Mikasa said. "Where's your girlfriend?"

"She's sitting with her cheer friends. So, we doing this?"

Mikasa placed the second _bento_ box in front of Eren. The container was pink with a Hello Kitty design.

"Sorry it's so girly. It was given to me when I was a kid." Mikasa placed the matching Hello Kitty chopsticks on top of the lid. Armin laughed.

"It suits you perfectly."

"You did this on purpose," Eren said.

"It was the only lunch box I had."

"Liar. I've been to your house a thousand times. I've seen these stacked in your cabinet." Eren lifted the top. He nodded appreciatively. "Looks good." Using the pink Hello Kitty chopsticks, he began picking up the pieces of steak and laying them on top of his rice. "Where's your lunch?" he said.

"I don't eat lunch."

"What do you mean 'you don't eat lunch?'" Eren gaped at her. "If you're not eating, I'm not eating." He set down his chopsticks demonstratively. Then, reaching over, he blocked Armin's hand, which was lifted halfway to his mouth, and guided it back down to the table. Eren shook his head. Armin set down his chopsticks too. They both looked at Mikasa and waited.

"I didn't bring anything to eat though."

"Easy. We'll share the lunches you made. Help me divide the food, Armin."

Eren and Armin put the containers together and measured a ration for Mikasa. They added rice and vegetables, and measured the portions meticulously. Eren lowered his head, becoming eye-level with the trays, ensuring they each got an equal helping.

"Armin," Eren said, inspecting the food-shares, "Give me more of your meat."

Quickly, before anyone could steal the punchline, Mikasa said: "That's what she said," and was quite pleased with herself for being so funny.

Neither boy laughed. They didn't even look at her. "Good one," Eren said, and dismissed the joke. He and Armin were preoccupied with the steak proportions, checking each other very closely for fairness. Eren picked out a few slices of steak from Armin's container. Armin protested: "Hey, hey. That's enough. You're taking it all."

Eren lovingly unfurled the slices like ribbons decorating his rice. Then he picked up one slice, the thinnest, driest slice, and dropped it in Armin's container. Armin frowned down at it.

"That was my first 'that's-what-she-said' joke," Mikasa said. She tried not to sulk. "The least you could do is be supportive."

"I said 'Good one,'" Eren offered. "Here's a golfer's clap." His fingers tapped out a prim applause. "Better?"

"No."

"Meat-thieves have no sense of humor," Armin said sullenly. "They're the scum of the earth."

"You need to get your glasses checked. It's equal. We're all equal." Eren jabbed a piece of steak at Mikasa's face. "Now shut up and shove this thick juicy beef in your mouth."

"Boy, you best not be shoving your beef in any bitch's mouth." Noralis appeared behind Eren, hands on hips, elbows jabbed out. Her shadow overlaid him.

Eren wheezed and bolted up ramrod straight. "Hi, Nora," he said.

"Don't 'Hi, Nora' me. Scoot your big butt over." Eren slid to the side. Noralis sat next to him. "What's this? Mikasa made it?"

"Yeah."

Noralis inspected it and said something in Spanish. Eren re-guided his chopsticks to her glossy lips. She covered her mouth, chewing.

"Not bad. A little tough, maybe."

Mikasa deflated a little.

"I didn't think so," Eren said.

Mikasa was all right again.

"You know what I'm craving? Mami's _empanadas_. Next time you come to the house, babe." Noralis turned for a kiss. Eren pretended not to see her and laid a piece of steak on his tongue. She mashed a forced unreciprocated kiss into his neck.

October

Swimmers lined behind the diving blocks. A small crowd waited at the other end of the pool. Mikasa and Armin were behind lane 7. It was the 100M Medley Relay. Eren would swim Butterfly, making him the third leg in the relay. Connie was on his final 25M of breaststroke. Eren climbed onto the diving block. He bent down, grabbed the edge. His arms were long, his legs were long. His shoulders were wide and strong. A pink swimmer's cap sucked his hair and ears to his head. Mikasa could see his muscles standing out, still firm from swimming his last event.

The small crowd cheered each time Connie's head came out of the water. "Go . . . Go . . . Go . . . Go . . ."

Connie's hands lurched forward. He tagged the wall. Eren dove, streamline, entering the pool clean like melted butter. For a while he was under the water. When he broke the surface, his arms fanned out, flying him down the lane. The small crowd converged as Eren closed in on the other end. People shouted, stretching over the flags that kept them from getting too close. Eren struck the wall and turned. Water splashed the shouting faces. Mikasa saw Eren's face, his orange-tinted goggles, as he coiled against the wall, breathed, and sank. In that split second, she saw him see the crowd. Under the water, he pushed off the wall and glided like a shadow, long and powerful, before coming up again, spanning the lane with his wings.

He touched the opposite side. He raced back. Again, the crowd surged in close when Eren tagged the wall, charging into his last 25M. He sprang off the wall and shot off into a sprint. His face came out of the water and his arms cut back in again. The crowd sang each time his arms pulled back. They were like sails, in and out of the water. He soared, putting more and more distance between himself and the other swimmers, faster, faster.

He touched the wall. The anchor swimmer flew off the block. Eren removed his cap and submerged his head. When he came up, Connie had a hand reached down for him and he helped Eren out of the pool. Mikasa saw the fibers in Eren's legs quivering. Striations shook and protruded. On either side of the diving block, Connie and Eren watched their last teammate finish the relay. When he tagged the wall, they both reached and grabbed a hand and hoisted their team mate from the pool. They clapped each other on the back. They clapped each other's chests. Together, they'd placed in first.

Mikasa and Armin crowded the flag-line separating the spectators from the swim team. Eren went to them and waved them over. They stepped over the flags.

"Thanks for coming," Eren said. He opened his arms. Mikasa hesitated. She tilted into them. His chest was cold and damp. Eren hugged Armin next. Armin pushed him away.

"Get off. You smell like chlorine."

"I wonder why."

As they stood together, talking, movement went on around them. Swimmers went to the diving blocks or to the cool-down lanes. Towels ruffled skin and hair until they were dry. Lake Valley High parkas were passed to chilly swimmers. Eren was barefoot on the deck. His toes were pruney. Mikasa and Armin wore flip-flops.

Mikasa was saying, "I knew you were a good swimmer, but I'd never seen you compete against other people. You beat everybody in the other lanes. By a lot."

"We've got a pretty solid swim team." Eren pointed to a sign where the school's swim records were posted. His name and his time for the 100M Butterfly were on it.

"What? You broke a record?"

"Did they announce it to the school?" Armin said. "Why didn't we hear about it?"

"People aren't impressed if you're half fish. It's not like I scored a game-winning touchdown or something."

"Where's your girlfriend?" Mikasa said.

"She doesn't like coming to swim meets."

"Why not?"

"She thinks it's gross seeing a bunch of guys walking around in speedos."

"Is that why you wear the longer swimsuit?"

"Actually, what she said about jammers is worse. Let's go sit under that tent."

They sat under a tent where other swimmers rested and socialized while they waited for their next event. There was a communal cooler with Gatorade and snacks. From it, Eren grabbed a Gatorade and asked if Mikasa or Armin wanted one. They declined. —What about a granola bar? They declined again. They settled and Eren spread his legs out on a towel. They watched anonymous arms and legs splash bursts of water.

"I think Noralis should come and support you," Mikasa said.

"Nah. That'd mean I have to go to her cheer competitions. I went to one before and it sucked. Not because the team sucked. The atmosphere sucked. It's like this culture of—pretenses and judgement; it was bizarre. I can deal with Nora's shallowness most of the time 'cause I know there's more to her. When she doesn't let her mom rule her fucking life, she's a completely different person. Her mom's a snake and that's where she learned it from." He bit his lip and thought something that seemed to trouble him a little. His expression soured a bit. Then he continued: "Anyway, I don't go to Nora's cheer competitions, she doesn't come to my swim meets. So it's fair."

They were quiet for a while, watching the boys' team fight through the second half of their 500M Freestyle. Many of them had dead legs, their arms alone carrying them down the length of the pool.

"Are you friends with Reiner Braun?" Mikasa indicated a football player sitting on a concrete bench. He had the face and body of a grown man rather than those of an eighteen-year-old high schooler.

"Never talked to him a day in my life." Eren drank a few swallows of Gatorade. He twisted the cap back on. "Why?"

"It seemed like he knew you."

"How you mean?"

"The way he was cheering."

"He's probably friends with one of other the guys in our relay." Eren shrugged on a fleece-lined parka. "He was at the Homecoming Court meeting yesterday. The head-lady told us we have to make a video of all us dressed up, like some kind of beauty pageant. They're going to show it on the morning announcements, too, then everybody'll vote. God, I hate this. Everybody knows a football player's going to win anyway."

"Do you want to win?"

"No." Eren pulled up the parka's hood. "But I don't really want to not win, either. I don't know. I just want to withdraw. Putting yourself up in front of the whole student body for them to judge you? Fuck that."

"Can you withdraw?" said Armin.

Eren was a faceless hooded figure in profile, his bare legs sticking up, his knees pointed out. "I talked to the Homecoming Committee about it. But I could tell they were confused about what to do. I guess it's never happened before. I don't know, I left before they could give me a concrete answer."

A signal went off. A line of swimmers entered the water and sprayed the deck. A few stray drops found Mikasa's arms. Eren said: "I decided I'll just go along with it, and get it over with, and then I'll push it out of my head, forever."

"I think there's something important you're forgetting," Mikasa said. "You were nominated to be one of the top ten guys in our class. Shouldn't a part of you feel, I don't know, flattered?"

"Haven't you heard?" Eren grinned, but it was too rigid to be a smile. Like he was pulling back his lips, exposing the set of teeth rooted in his skull. "I only got votes by association."

"Don't listen to that bullgarbage, Eren," Armin said. "People voted for you because they like you for you. Not because of your girlfriend."

"Who's listening to it?" Eren picked his nails. They were shrunken into his shrively fingers, bitten to the nail bed. "People can say whatever the hell they want. I don't give a shit."

A cloud slid over the sun and blanketed its shadow on them. The warmth was taken off their bodies. Autumn chill drove into their skin and seeped the dripping wet swimsuits cold.

"Take your mark."

A new line of swimmers bent, assuming their diving stances, and held it. They were Roman statues, smooth and defined stone. The signal went off. The swimmers swooped off the blocks. The pool caught and cradled them in cool blue swallows.

October

It was the middle of a class change. Traffic crisscrossed and congested sidewalks and hallways. It was a crawling trek from classroom to classroom. Mikasa slogged along, her eyes glued to the canvas paper she was holding. Suddenly it vanished, her fingers frozen, still gripping the disappeared edges.

Eren appeared beside her. In his hands was the canvas paper. "What's this?"

"Give it back," she said.

He examined the canvas paper and appraised it the way aesthetes do. All criticism, no discretion. "Where'd you get this?"

"It was a present."

"From who?"

"A boy in my class."

"Wha-at?" Eren started to laugh. "It looks like a little kid drew it. This is terrible."

Mikasa felt herself go numb. "Give it back." She snatched for it, her hands numb and tingly. Eren reached the drawing up high away from her and swerved to the side. "Eren," she said. She heard her own voice like it was siphoned down a long tube. "_Give it back_."

"I can't believe he had the balls to give it to you. Isn't he embarrassed? Why's it look like that?"

"Why do _you_ look like that?"

Eren froze. His face went blank. Mikasa had gone numb with a cold, incredulous anger. Other students turned to look. Mikasa held out a beckoning hand. Eren placed the drawing in it. Mikasa's eyes were wide, incredulous by how angry she was. She dropped in the middle of the overcrowded sidewalk and tore open her backpack. Students gushed, relentless, unstopping, around her. Legs surrounded her unnoticed crouched position. She slid the drawing into her backpack and jerked at the zipper. It jammed on the track. A bag struck the back of her head and she saw lights. Eren bent down and the other students sharply diverged like a startled school of minnows. He hoisted Mikasa up from the ground.

"You okay?" he said. "Nobody could see you down there. You could've been trampled."

She shook him off. Her eyes were still wide and incredulous. "He did his best on that drawing."

"His best?"

Mikasa could see Eren physically fighting a nauseatingly hideous smile. "You're unbelievable," she said. "Why should he be embarrassed for doing something nice? Nobody should be embarrassed but you."

That hit. She saw the hideousness crumble off his face. "You're right," he said. "I'm sorry. I'm being an ass."

They joined the mass of students tramping the sidewalk. They moved slowly, sluggishly, like sunbaked cattle. Shoulders knocked together. Shoes tripped over one another. In the distance, the black bars of the ten-foot fence imprisoning everybody inside could be seen.

"Who is he?" Eren said.

"I don't want to talk about this right now."

"Do you like him?"

Mikasa whirled. Her hair flailed in a short black spread. She stuck her face in Eren's face. If they were kids, identical in size and weight, she'd push him to the ground and wrestle him until he gave up. Now she could only try to compress him with her eyes. Make him small and sorry with a look. "You better watch yourself, Eren, before you piss me off for real."

"Damn. It was just a question." Eren was still tall, still _stupid_, as ever.

"A stupid question," she said.

"What'd I do now? I said I was sorry."

Mikasa shook her head. She began walking again. He followed and kept at her side.

"Mikasa. Mikasa, listen." He spoke to the side of her face. "I'm sorry. For real, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have made fun of the drawing. You made your point. Okay? I regret what I said. Honest."

"Look." Mikasa raised her palm in a halt. They stopped in the middle of the sidewalk again. "I always thought you were too good for Noralis. And I didn't understand how somebody like you could be with somebody like her. But now I get it. You chose her for a reason. You're actually a lot like her." Mikasa wanted to stop herself. She couldn't. "You belong together. You're a perfect match. So, just, go. Go and put other people down so you can feel good about yourself."

Mikasa went to class. Eren didn't follow. She felt bad about what she said for the rest of the day.

October

The last week of October was Lake Valley High's Spirit Week. With Spirit Week came the Spirit Games, which took place in the middle of the week at 6 PM. On the football field, volunteer students and staff were lined up. 9th graders wore green shirts. 10th graders wore yellow. 11th grade, red. 12th, blue. The staff wore the school's colors of purple and gold. Across the field, the sun sat on the AWAY team's bleachers. To watch the games, Armin, Mikasa, and Sasha found seats in the HOME team's bleachers.

Down on the field in the blue 12th grade line was Eren Jaeger. He had a neon pink sweatband around his head. Some of the boys had removed the sleeves from their class shirts. Some boys had made crop-tops. Some of the girls had cut slits into the sides or they'd braided designs along the seams. Eren's shirt was unaltered.

Cheerleaders led the crowd into chants and choreography. Noralis shook her purple tinseled pompoms. The 12th grade cheerleaders wore lacey purple garters on their thighs.

"Is the concession stand open?" Sasha said.

"I don't think so," Armin said. "Eren's up next. Look."

Mikasa smiled, despite herself. "He's taking this very seriously. Do you see his face?"

Eren stepped to the front of the 12th grade line with a face blazing and focused with the intensity of competition. It was a relay race. He was the next runner.

Eren was tagged in. He ran twenty yards. When he reached the 50-yard line, he grabbed the baseball bat waiting for him, stood it up, pressed it to his forehead, and spun. A cheerleader wearing a garter counted the number of spins. When he was done, she took the bat from him and he darted off, sprinting back toward the line of seniors screaming and bawling with team spirit.

Eren's feet ran but vertigo caught up to him. His legs began to slide under his body like cooked noodles. He tilted forward. He caught himself on his palms, supine to the ground, his long legs still trying to run, never stopping. He drove himself forward, half-fallen, and tagged Connie in. Their hands cracked together like a bolt, Mikasa imagined a flash of light shedding across the field, and Connie was hurled across the grass, his legs blurring, reaching the 50-yard line faster than anyone yet.

Sasha jumped up on the stands. "That's right, Connie! Show these kids how it's done." She dropped back down. "My boy just got us the lead. Hot Cheetos or Takis?" She held two bags in front of Armin's face.

"Where'd you even get those?" he said.

She smiled like she didn't hear him. "Pick one."

"I'm not that good with spicy food," he said.

Below on the field, Reiner Braun caught Eren around the waist and shook him proudly. They were all proud of each other. Proud, even of the people they'd never met. Proud to be seniors, together. Two 12th grade boys ran and jumped and propelled into each other like converging rockets. Their shoulders exploded together. They whooped.

The 12th graders won the Dizzy Bat Race. Class points were added to their score. After all the games were over and done, the points would be totaled and compared. This was only a formality. Everybody knew at the end of the night, even if they didn't score the most points, the senior class would win. That's how it was every year.

Next was Tug-of-War.

Before the game started, the seniors huddled together in a circle. They planned a strategy and stuck their fists in the middle and did a hearty team-break. The seniors in the stands cheered and stomped their feet.

When the seniors on the field took their positions along the rope, the strategy was clear. The weaker girls were at the front of the rope. The larger, stronger boys were toward the end. Eren was toward the end. The densely-muscled football player, Reiner Braun, stood behind him.

The sophomores grabbed the other end of the massive rope. A whistle trilled. The battle began.

In less than a minute, it was over. The senior boys tumbled over each other as the sophomores gave up and let go. It was a domino effect. Seniors capsized down the line. Eren bashed into Reiner. Reiner stumbled and crashed on his tailbone. They all laughed, arms and legs tangled and scrambled up on the ground.

Another win for their graduating class. Points were tallied. Celebration erupted. Reiner threw Eren over his shoulder and twirled him around and set him back on his feet as if he were a toddler, not six-two and 170 pounds.

Mikasa bounded down the bleacher steps. She went to the front railing. Eren was small with distance, below on the ground. Mikasa strained for a closer look. As more events unfolded, Mikasa grew suspicious. Not of Eren. But of those around him. One, in particular.

Eren used his neon pink sweatband like a slingshot and stung Connie.

The metal stands pounded with feet. The feet came Mikasa's way. She looked to the side and saw a girl she knew from Art class.

Ymir nodded at Mikasa in a wordless acknowledgment. She sauntered over. There was a complacent, almost menacing aloofness to the way she moved. Her hair was in short twists, pulled back under a bandana. A galaxy of freckles smattered her cheekbones. Her face rested in a smirky smile loaded with barbs and a secret clever weapon. In special cases, she was known to use it. Sometimes for good. Sometimes for evil. Always for herself.

Next to Mikasa, Ymir slid her elbows onto the bleacher rails and leaned. Mikasa did the same.

"Is it just me, or is Noralis getting a gut on her?" They watched the cheerleaders for a second.

"It's just you," said Mikasa.

"How far along you think she is?"

"You're nasty."

"You know me, baby girl." Ymir scuffed the bottom of her shoe-heel. Mikasa watched Ymir from one side of her face. "Speaking of nasty. Reiner's getting a little too greedy these days."

"What?"

"You need to pay more attention if you want to be of any help to Eren." She turned her head and looked Mikasa in the eye, and those eyes were the eyes of someone who'd seen too much, knew too much, and revealed very little.

Mikasa was growing impatient.

"I have no clue what you're talking about, and you act like I'm supposed to be following."

"You're slow. We done talked about this already."

"I've never had a single conversation with you outside Art class."

"I'm jus' clownin' you, mama." Ymir reached an arm around Mikasa's shoulders. She was a few inches taller, taut with lean muscle. She had buttery skin that looked like your lips would melt into it. "Do I got your vote for Homecoming King?"

"No?"

Ymir smiled. "That's a'ight. No hurt done. This lil' hodunk town can't handle a true king yet. You figure Eren's got any chance to win?"

"I don't know."

"Dayum. That's tough. Did you and him quarrel?"

"No?"

The juniors broke into screams. They roared and stomped their feet against the metal stands in a rumbling quake. They'd beaten the sophomores in tug-of-war. The noise faded and points were added.

"Mikasa, do you know which sport's got the biggest influence on campus?" Ymir waited. She added: "I'll give you a hint: It ain't football."

"Nobody pays attention to the swim team, though."

"That's 'cause they let anybody join. More than half their recruits are underclassmen. You can figure, then, the name Eren Jaeger's trickled all the way down to them lil' Freshmen jits. That boy's got more clout than he could even guess at."

"You think he'll win?"

"I know he'll win. He got the underclassmen vote." Ymir smiled her barbed loaded half-smile. "But Prom King? That crown's mine." She winked. "See you around. A'ight? Behave yourself, baby girl."

October

At the beginning of English class, in front of Mikasa, Eren opened a folder and turned around in the desk and took out today's new origami creation. He swam the paper-fish, zig-zagging in a pretend river, from the folder's pocket onto Mikasa's desk.

"The best part of my day is finding these things in my backpack. I don't even know how you manage to sneak them into the pockets without me seeing."

"It'll always be one of life's little mysteries."

Not every day could Mikasa leave them. But on the days when Eren seemed to walk a little slower; on the days he had a tired sag in his shoulders, Mikasa would make sure to hide one somewhere for him to find.

Eren put his chin on her desk. He gazed up at her with softened, significant eyes, saying a lot with a look alone. "I've known you for half my life. But I think I could know you for a hundred years, and you'd always be mysterious to me."

"The teacher's about to start talking."

"I like this one." Eren swam the fish in circles. "You should teach me how to make it."

"How about another library lunch date?"

"Date?" he repeated, but he picked his head up from her desk and crooned the word mischievously.

Mikasa rolled her eyes. "Turn back around before you get me in trouble."

Eren tapped her lightly under the chin. "It's a date, then."

"Mr. Jaeger. If you can't sit in your desk properly, I'll have you sitting facing the wall."

Eren snapped around.

"Yes ma'am."

October

It was the Homecoming Football game half-time.

The cheerleaders were doing their routine. It was different from their usual routine because not only was it Homecoming, it was also senior night. With purple garters hiked up on their thighs, the senior cheerleaders lined up, turned, and bent down. Their skirts were lifted by the underclassmen and on the back of their spandex, each girl had a sign which spelled out C-L-A-S-S O-F 2-0-1-6. The first two girls lowered their skirts before the others. So, for a moment, it was A-S-S O-F 2-0-1-6. The last few stunts were performed and they held a pose. The three flyers each had one leg lifted, a foot stretched to their ear. Then they were thrown and spun and the boys at the base caught the petite pixie flyers in a cradle.

"You liked that. Didn't you, Armin?" Mikasa said.

"I don't understand how that's even allowed. How come they have permission to flash us, but Eren gets a detention for barely any sag?" Armin made a face. "This school's insane. I can't wait to graduate and be done with it."

The time came to announce the winners of Homecoming King and Queen. The cheerleaders tumbled and pranced off the field. A couple football players detached from the team and jogged over to the sidelines, matching up with their Homecoming Court partners. Arms were fastened together. The pairs waited for their names to be called.

At the 50-yard line, the principal stood with a microphone. There was a white terrace archway with Christmas lights weaved through it. She began calling names. One at a time, couples strode elegantly down the front of the field and waved and smiled at the people in the stands.

When Noralis and Eren were called, two people walked down the sidelines. Noralis wore her cheer uniform, her upper thigh pouring around a purple lacey garter. Her arm was wrapped in the crook of someone else's arm. An arm that wasn't Eren's.

Mikasa and Armin watched a grimy football player escort Noralis across the field to the 20-yard line. They stood together, arm in arm.

At that moment, Mikasa and Armin both spied Connie running up the bleachers, bounding up the wide awkward steps. "Reiner just told me nobody can find Eren and he's not answering my calls." He lifted his phone and showed them the calling screen. "You know where he might be at?"

Mikasa and Armin shook their heads.

"Well, this could be a problem. Reiner says Eren's gonna win."

"How does Reiner know?"

"He's on the student Homecoming Committee," Connie said. "He's sworn to secrecy, but since nobody can find Eren, he sent me to ask y'all."

Mikasa took out her phone. She called Eren's cell. As with Connie, Eren didn't answer and his voicemail picked up. Mikasa scrolled through her contacts. She found Mrs. Jaeger in the list. She tapped on CARLA JAEGER and put the phone to her ear.

The call went through. "Hello?"

"Hi, Mrs. Jaeger. This is Mikasa."

"Mikasa? Mikasa?" When the name and voice registered, the confusion melted into affection: "Mikasa! How are you doing? Can I help you with something?"

"I'm sorry for calling. You're probably busy. Right now, I'm at the Homecoming football game and the Homecoming Committee's looking for Eren. I tried calling him, but he wouldn't answer."

"As far as I know, he's at home," she said. "He was sleeping when I left. Is he on the committee? Is he supposed to be helping at the game?"

"He's—on Homecoming Court, actually. They're announcing who's King and Queen right now. He could win. But he's not here to be crowned."

"What? He never said anything about making Homecoming Court. Why didn't he tell me? Shouldn't you tell your mother something like that?"

A pause. "I don't think it's a big deal that he's not here," Mikasa said. "But do you mind if I run by your house to check on him? I just want to make sure he's okay."

"Of course. You can go through the garage. Do you remember the code?"

"Yes ma'am. I remember it."

"When you find him, tell him to call me. I need to have a talk with him."

"Yes ma'am."

The call ended. Mikasa put her phone in her pocket. Connie and Armin waited for her update.

"Eren's not coming," she said.

"Where he at?"

"Just leave it alone, Connie. He's not coming. That's all I can say."

"A'ight. Cool, I guess. Is he gonna pass the crown, then? What they gon' do?"

Now that all the candidates had been named, walked the field, and lined up in their pairs, the principal announced runner-up for Homecoming Queen. It was a small quirky girl from marching band, crowned with a smaller princess tiara. Ymir was right, Mikasa thought. This band girl, too, had pulled a heap of votes from the underclassmen. Not their 12th grade classmates who were hardly aware she existed. Under the lighted terrace, the runner-up stood in her emerald gown with her tiara and bouquet. Photographs were taken. Flashes struck her and refracted off her makeup in an odd glow. She glided off the field.

The principal raised the mic again: "And this year's homecoming queen is—" Suspense as the card was delivered and opened. The people behind Mikasa muttered to each other.

"The lil' white girl's gone win. Watch."

"—Historia Reiss."

"Ay. What'd I tell you?"

Mikasa nudged Armin. She indicated for him to follow. They rose from the bleachers.

"Where y'all goin'?" Connie said.

"Are you leaving?" Sasha said. "They're about to announce who got king."

"Text it to me," Mikasa said.

"Sorry, but we have to head out," Armin said. "We're still meeting at Don Jose tomorrow, right? At six?"

"Yeah, man. It's gonna be dope." Connie listed a number of people on his fingers. "It'll be you, me, Sasha, Mikasa, Jean. I invited Eren too, but he said he's gon' hafta talk to his girl."

"I'm bringing a date," Armin said. "Will that be okay?"

"You have a date?" Mikasa said. "Who?"

"She goes to the college. You'll meet her tomorrow."

"I made a reservation for ten," Connie said. "'Cause I know you got a date, too." He indicated Mikasa.

"What?" Armin said. "You didn't tell me you had a date."

"You didn't tell me _you_ had a date."

"Damn, son." Connie shook his head. "Y'all need to learn some communication."

# # #

When Mikasa pulled in front of the Jaeger's house, Eren's car was sitting in the driveway. Mikasa pulled in next to it. She and Armin went to the closed garage and opened a covered panel mounted to the jamb. Mikasa punched in Eren's birthday. The numbers lit up under her fingertip. The motor started and the door glided up, retracting into the house. They went in and entered the laundry room. Younger versions of Eren, Mikasa, and Armin at Disney World smiled behind a hung frame as the older versions of themselves climbed the stairs. Eren's bedroom door was shut. Mikasa tapped on it.

"Eren. It's me and Armin. You in there?"

No answer.

"We're coming in. Okay? You better be wearing pants or I'll have to pour acid in my eyes to overshadow the torture of seeing your man bits."

"Oh, my god, Mikasa." Eren hollered from inside. His voice was thick and strange. "I'm wearing shorts."

Mikasa pushed the door open. Blackness spewed out of the room like a dead sick smell. Armin groped the wall. He flipped the light switch.

Tucked on his side, away from them, Eren was a dead-still body in a rumpled bed. The quilt and sheets were tugged high under his chin. Nothing but the back of his hair was visible.

"What do you want?" His voice was still thick and strange. There was a slight, almost imperceptible quiver. He writhed deeper into his blankets.

"You weren't at the game," Armin said. "Everybody was looking for you."

Mikasa went around the bed and Eren didn't move, and his eyes were half-lidded staring at the wall, watching her in the peripheral. She laid her hands on Eren's face and felt him. Then she flipped her hands over and felt his face again with the other side. "Are you sick? Do you have a fever? You feel hot."

"I been sleeping. People get hot when they sleep." He tossed the other way in bed, twisting his face away. The arteries in his eyes were red and aggravated and the sad sleepy Eren-smell blew from the blankets when he moved. "Stop. Seriously. Stop."

Mikasa let her arms fall to her sides. "We need to talk," she said.

"About what?" Eren finally sat up. He rested back against the headboard.

Armin took Eren's desk chair. He sat in it the wrong way, his legs straddling the front. "About you, obviously," he said.

"I'm worried, Eren," Mikasa said. "No, I'm not just worried about you. I'm scared for you. You're always sleeping and you look miserable all the time." She looked him in the face. "Did something happen?"

"Nothing happened."

"Eren."

"Nothing happened." Eren drew up his legs. "I'm tired for no reason. I'm miserable for no reason." He shrugged. "I don't know why I'm like this. I can't control it. I can't turn it off and tune back in when I want to and wake up. It's not like I don't want to be awake and alive badly enough, so that's why I can't turn it off. I want to. But I can't do anything. I don't know what I'm saying." He grabbed his temples and pushed on his skull like he was trying to reposition a dislocated brain. He groaned. His face contorted with violence and rage. He was going to scream. Then his face trembled and fell. He was going to cry.

"Eren, look at me."

Eren looked at her. When Mikasa stared into his face, she saw a pool of water and her own reflection was staring back at her through a ripply distortion.

"Whatever you're feeling, it's okay," she said, reiterating what he'd told her, hoping the pounding river in his head would go quiet and the pressure would trickle away. "If you get mad at yourself for feeling what you feel, it becomes a vicious circle you can't climb out of. And then you'll break."

Armin and Eren looked everywhere except at Mikasa or each other. The pool of water spread and flowed over them, covering them, and they shared it. They hung, understanding each other, alone together, like three bodies thrown into the ocean, chained together to a cinder block, and nobody would ever know what had happened to them, just the three connected bodies, gently swaying in the undertow, drowned dead by the same agony.

"There's a place I want to show you guys," Mikasa said. "Will you go there with me? right now?"

# # #

The small car jolted down a dirt road. Dust billowed behind the tires like smoke. The moon shined high over the trees.

"Yo, Armin." Eren was in the backseat, leaning forward over the console. His head was thrust between the driver and passenger seats. "I've seen this in a movie before. Heads up. We're about to get axed to our deaths."

"Yeah," Armin said. "Where the heck are you taking us, Mikasa? There's nothing except cows out here."

"Levi told me about this place. I've been there a few times."

"Okay, but what is it?"

"There's this urban legend." Mikasa garnished her voice with all the suspense she could manage. "If you park your car in the right spot and you shut off the engine and then you look down the road, you'll see a ghost light."

"What's a ghost light?"

"A ghost light is an unexplained glowing orb that you can't track down. When you try to, it disappears." The boys listened obediently, like children do, soaking in every word. "Levi says he's seen it. He says it was this red orb that floated in the middle of the road. And when he investigated, trying to figure out where it was coming from, it vanished, just like the legend says." It was a spooky dramatic narration. The boys were stock-still with attention. "I've heard other things, too. Like cars not starting and demons showing up. But I don't believe those stories."

"You don't believe in demons," Eren said. "Just a ghost light."

"Mysterious lights can be explained usually."

"I don't like this," Armin said. "Can we turn around?"

"No."

When she reached the old dirt road in the legend, Mikasa turned and parked the car. The engine cut. The lights went dark. Barbed-wire fences and pastures flanked the road like a knife had cut one enormous pasture in half to make two with a 20-foot path down the middle. Mikasa opened her door.

"You guys go ahead. I'm staying inside." Armin fixed himself to the passenger seat.

Mikasa closed her door. Eren got out from the back and followed Mikasa. They walked around to the front of the car and leaned back on the hood. It radiated, warm. Mechanics and machinery made sighing clicks as the car sank into sleep. Eren and Mikasa stared down the road, searching the darkness for the legendary orb. The stars were out. Their shadows pooled, blue, on the dirt. Somewhere to their right was the gloomy sound of an owl.

"Even if there's no ghost light," Mikasa said, "this a good place to stargaze and talk about— whatever you want to talk about—everything there _is_ to talk about—you know? away from all the noise."

"The sky's big and clear out here."

Their voices were low and soft. The night was quiet. It'd been about seven minutes when the passenger door opened and light spilled out into the ditch. The door clicked. The interior light blinked out. Dirt and gravel grinded under slow footfalls. Eren turned over his shoulder.

"Finally decided to join, huh?"

Armin came around to the front of the car. "Mikasa, you know how in scary movies there's always a group of teenagers who stupidly go off into the woods and get themselves murdered? That's us right now. If we were in one of your horror movies, we'd be the stupid teenagers who get dismembered by chainsaws."

"He's not wrong," Eren said.

"We'll be fine," Mikasa said.

Eren and Mikasa stepped to the side and made a spot for Armin. Then the three leaned back on the hood of the car and watched the road. The night grew brighter as their eyes adjusted. Soon, they could see by moonlight.

"I need to tell you guys something," Mikasa said. "I've been thinking a lot about graduation and the three of us splitting up. But each time I think about it, I get this sick feeling of dread in my stomach. It makes me want to throw up. Am I the only one who doesn't want this to end?"

"No, I feel the same," Eren said.

"It feels like it's just me."

"It's not just you."

"I try not to think about it," Armin said.

"I can't not think about it," said Mikasa. "I'm always thinking about it." She reached for Eren. She reached for Armin. She filled both her own hands with each of theirs. "Sometimes I feel the need to hold onto you. As tight as I can." She squeezed. Armin squeezed back.

"You're acting like it'll be goodbye forever," he said. "We'll still visit each other."

"That's what everybody says when they're our age. Then they drift apart. And then, eventually, they die."

"We have time. We're not dying anytime soon." Armin laughed at her, kindly. "We're here together right now."

"That's not enough time. When I go home, this will all be in the past. And then I'll be sixty years old and wonder, what happened to my friends? Where did they go? Why didn't I hold onto them more tightly?" She squeezed their hands, harder, with a fatalistic urgency. She shut her eyes and focused her senses, trying to memorize this moment. "I don't want to have any regrets."

Eren hadn't spoken yet but when he began to, his voice was low and grave and he was miles deep inside his lonely inconceivable mind: "Maybe you won't feel it," he said. "It'll be like slipping into sleep and then waking up one morning, trying to remember what you'd been dreaming about. It'll be like that. Everything will be so distant and vague, like a dream. You won't feel it enough to have regrets. You won't feel it enough for anything to hurt at all."

"That's worse," Mikasa said. Everything was hurting inside. "I want to remember every little detail we have together. And I want to remember it vividly. So vividly that when I think about it, it'll be like travelling back in time."

The road was black and there was nothing ahead of them. Four months from now, Mikasa would hardly remember half of their conversation. She wouldn't remember how Eren could, at any moment, dive too deeply into his head and say something painful without feeling any of the pain, as if he was always in pain and one pain couldn't be distinguished from the rest.

Eren's hand never squeezed back. This, she remembered.

"Before we graduate," Mikasa said, "there are a couple things I want to do with you guys."

"Like a bucket list?" Armin said.

"Yeah."

"Well I'm not doing anything illegal," Eren said. "Unless you're paying me."

"One: I want to stay in Orlando for a couple days. We'll go to Disney World and recreate that picture Eren's mom has hanging on the wall. Two: I want to go Kayaking with the manatees at Rainbow Springs. Lastly, when we're all eighteen, I want to go to a strip club."

"You'll have to repeat that last thing," Eren said flatly, and unamused, "'cause I know you didn't say what I think you said."

"I said what you think."

"Uh-uh. I could never go to a strip club with either of you."

"Why?"

He looked at Mikasa: "Because you're you—" He looked at Armin, "and you're you. It'd be too weird. You're the only friends I have who can win 'Never Have I Ever.'"

"You're not supposed to be good at that game," Armin said.

"Yeah," Mikasa said.

"If we're going to a strip club, you'll have to carry my blacked-out-drunk ass through the door. That is the only way you're getting me inside."

"It was just a joke," Mikasa said. "But now I see where we stand. We're your loser friends."

"What? That's not what I said. You're my respectable upstanding-citizen friends. I respect you."

"Anyway—"

"And I like you more than everyone else. You're my favorite people."

"Anyway—"

"It's the truth. You're special. I love you guys."

"Anyway, a couple days in Orlando and then a trip to Rainbow Springs, can we do that?"

"I'm in," Armin said.

"Absolutely," Eren said. "But let's make this a thing thing. A real thing. Armin, you think of something to add to the bucket list, and I'll think of something. Then we'll each get to do something we want, together."

It didn't take long for more ideas to fire through their heads. These three had been gifted with lively uninhibited imaginations. As another idea came in and another, their excitement grew, their happiness swelled. All the imaginary happiness they'd have together in the future gave them real immediate happiness right where they were, standing next to each other, in a poor rural town, in the middle of a deserted road, under a canopy of stars.

"I'd like to go to St. Augustine. I've never been," Armin said. "What'd you think of, Eren?"

"How about the Keys?"

"That's bigger than anything Mikasa and I said."

"It could be a Spring Break trip. I know a guy with a rental place down there. To bring down costs, we could even invite a few extra people, like Connie and Sasha. Jean, if we have to. We could all pitch in. What you think?"

"I want to see a coral reef," said Mikasa.

"I want to go fishing off-shore," said Armin.

"We could do both those things. But it'll get pricey. We'll have to save up," Eren said. "Maybe we should make it a graduation celebration and wait until after we walk."

"Yeah. I like that idea."

They were excited and encouraged and renewed. Everything was hopeful. Everything was wonderful. Everything was false.

"We have to do this," said Mikasa. "No flaking. No backing out last minute."

"Don't look at me like that," Armin said. "That's on Eren."

Armin and Mikasa swiveled their heads. They accused and threatened him with a single shared look.

"I know, I know," Eren said. He put his arms around Armin and Mikasa's necks. He pulled them into his face and they felt his tough cheek muscles smiling against their own cheek muscles. "I won't back out. I promise."

The dirt on the road reflected the moon, faintly visible against the dark grassy fields on either side. The dirt road went straight backward, past the pastures, into the woods. It was dragged into the woods like a tongue and plunged into a throatlike tunnel out of sight.

They watched the road and saw nothing. After an hour, they gave up and went home.

* * *

a/n: My dad is Japanese and my mom is Caucasian so it's the opposite of Mikasa and I didn't know many Asian ppl until I went to college. I made Asian friends there. A few Asians went to my high school but not many. These college friends I made were Korean and I learned a lot from them. Not always good things...

I Googled Mikasa's mother's name and couldn't find any name so I just used my grandma's name 😂

We used to sit at her coffee table and quietly make origami together.


	6. Homecoming

a/n: shorter chapter, 6.8K words. but short chapter means faster update.

* * *

The Homecoming Dinner

It was 6 PM.

Don Jose was overflowing with a forty-five-minute waiting-line out the door.

Sitting on a lake, with a pier extending out into the water, the restaurant was owned by a Mexican family who employed an all-Mexican staff. It was a vibrant building with a fountain and wall murals outside. Inside hung framed fine art. Care and devotion brushed each inch of the building. Inside, outside, everything had been made beautiful.

At the booths and tables were many young people dressed for Homecoming. Connie had reserved seats on the outdoor patio. String lights with bare globe bulbs shined over them. Colorful _papel picado_ banners draped across wooden scaffolds.

Already seated at the table were Connie, Sasha, and Jean who had carpooled and didn't have dates, but that was okay because they were content being with each other. Armin introduced Annie to the group. Mikasa recalled her from the coffee shop. She wore a blue cocktail dress and Armin matched her with his blue suspenders. Her eyes were heavily padded in black grungy eyeliner, like she'd pushed two charcoal-spattered thumbs into her eye sockets.

Before Mikasa could introduce her date, Eren and Noralis strode out of the main dining area and onto the outdoor patio. A creamy mini-dress pulled Noralis in and smoothed out her figure and she was a seamless set of curves with a sharp relief waist. Instinctively, Eren caressed little appreciative touches on her arms and hips and thighs.

"Aye-e-e." Connie and Eren dapped. Across the table, Jean and Eren made eye contact and acknowledged each other with a short discreet nod.

"Where you been at?" said Connie. "You damn left yo' girl out to hang and dry yesterday. You really did that."

"He lucky I don't skin him alive," Noralis said.

"For real,'" Connie said.

"I'll make it up to you." Eren held Noralis from behind, his arms wrapped around her ribcage. Nobody else could hear him when he called her '_mi amor,_' for he'd whispered it directly against her ear, and he said it to her even while knowing he sounded stupid and bad, saying it anyway because at that exact moment, it carried a significance beyond anything else and would impact differently than anything else, too. "You know I love you," he said.

"I don't know if I believe you, baby." Noralis reached back and scratched, her nails hissing, where his hair met the back of his neck, and she loved that he tried, and tried for her, and it never mattered if he sounded good or bad or stupid because it was for her and nobody else.

"You can believe me," he said.

Eren put his nose and lips in Noralis's black spirally hair. Tonight, he was indisposed. Sick with how he felt about Noralis. The sickness expressed itself through his little touches, the little grips and tugs, on Noralis's arms and hips and thighs. It was contagious and infected Noralis, too, who was beginning to melt inside her dress.

"Y'all too much," Connie said, and made a face like he'd caught the whiff of an offensive scent. "Rein it in, kids. _Please_."

It came time for Armin and Mikasa to introduce their dates to Eren. First Armin introduced Annie. She and Eren greeted each other and for the next two seconds, they used their eyes to assess and evaluate and form snap judgements. Annie was nineteen, but she was ten years older than her arbitrary numerical age due to past adversity, as adversity was liable to age little girls and little boys long before they came of age if it occurred early and cruelly enough. This was a quality Eren ascertained during his initial assessment and evaluation of Annie Leonhart; he would tell Mikasa this at some point later that evening. Between Eren and Annie, there was an easy intuitive acceptance. That was that.

Then Eren turned to Mikasa. His expression was anticipatory and curious. His brain worked as he formed his first impression of the boy Mikasa held on her arm.

"This is Giovanni," she said.

Eren observed the watery skin, the skittish eyes, the large purple-rimmed nostrils. Eren's face was expert and acceptable, letting on nothing but interest and brightness. Not for a second did Mikasa believe it.

"Nice to meet you," he said pleasantly. "I'm Eren."

Eren smiled and stuck out his hand. His face was bright and pleasant, everything acceptable about it. Giovanni's head was shrugged low. He didn't look Eren in the eye and made no move to receive Eren's presented handshake. Instead, Giovanni leaned forward and moved into the invisible spheres that contained an individual's feet and secured each person a suitable interval of distance from another. Eren's handshake fell. His expert face faulted. Mikasa saw it slipping off like a mask. He was startled as Giovanni drew close, then closer, violating the implicit laws of personal space.

Giovanni whispered.

There was confusion. A moment of wonder. "Sorry, I missed what you said."

Then Giovanni stepped in, almost chest to chest with Eren now, his face raised a little. Eren's weight shifted to his heels. He tilted on the backs of his feet, as if he were balanced on the edge of a cliff. The mask slipped farther off. Then Giovanni began to whisper again and Eren quickly ducked down to hear him. "Nice to meet you," Giovanni said, in a voice that barely found Eren's hearing.

Eren was a bit slow to respond, still wondering at everything. "Yeah, man. Same."

Giovanni slowly leaned back next to Mikasa. His head sank down into his shoulders again. His skittish gaze anchored to his shoes.

Eren turned his eyes on Mikasa. All the expertness, the brightness, the acceptableness cracked apart. Confusion took its place.

"He's in my art class," Mikasa said.

"Oh? Is he the guy who gave you that drawing?"

"Yes."

Eren was still confused. Mikasa wondered if this had been a mistake. She considered leaving and taking Giovanni out to eat at a smaller, more private restaurant. And it would only be him and her, away from all the others, on their own little island, together, where nobody could misunderstand.

Giovanni leaned toward Eren again. Eren tensed a little as the invisible walls of personal space, comfort, and acceptableness collapsed. This time when Giovanni started to whisper, Eren's head swung in, closer than before, his ear turned obligingly.

"Did you like my drawing?" Giovanni said.

At once, the mask fell off and the face under it dissolved into softness and guilt and burning kindness. Eren nodded. "Yeah. I did." He clasped Giovanni by the shoulder and pulled him into his side. "It was nice of you to give it to her. Mikasa had this huge, embarrassing—" he mouthed silently for Mikasa to read: _lame-ass_— "smile on her face. Got to say: You knew what you was doing, brother. Worked like a charm."

Giovanni's gaunt frame was surrounded by Eren's swimmer shoulders. Giovanni slowly, subtly smiled, a microscopic shift in his blank, glass-still face. Eren's eyes burned with gentleness and kindness. Mikasa was relieved. Eren subsumed Giovanni into their social circle and carved out a space for him to belong, forever.

They took their seats at the dinner table. The sun was heatless and red, about to disappear on the other side of the lake.

Their dinner orders were taken. As they waited, they laughed and made each other laugh. Then the food came and they ate and praised how good it was. Giovanni ate a few bites of his meal and wanted no more. Eren finished the dish for him. Then they sat around the table and waited for their checks and laughed some more. Then they paid. Mikasa paid for Giovanni. Eren paid of Noralis. Annie snuck her card into the book behind Armin's back and paid for their dinners without him knowing.

"Annie." Armin removed his glasses and mopped the lenses with a microfiber cloth. "I was going to pay. I thought we agreed." The glasses rested on his nose again.

"You can pay next time," she said.

He calculated and read her face for any future subterfuge. No conclusions could be made. He gave up. "All right," he said. "Next time."

Before they left, a handsome waiter took a picture of their group on the pier. The setting sun doused them in red highlight and they were happy and smiling and glowing pink with their arms around each other, huddled tightly together, mashing everybody into the limited frame. The pier elevated them over a dazzling miraculous void.

In the future, they would use this picture among many others at the service.

The Homecoming Dance

Before they walked up to the gymnasium, Jean got out a bottle of rum and passed it around. When it reached Armin, he declined and passed it to Annie. She took two swigs. Then she passed it to Mikasa who put up a hand, shook her head, and said, "Asian glow."

"Is that like a Power Up?" Eren said, "or a finishing move?" He assumed a power stance and shot out an imaginary blast from his hands. "You just shout Asian Glow, and then your OP Asianness mows everybody down in a hundred-mile radius?"

"And her hair stands up like a Super Saiyan," Connie said.

"Yeah, yeah, ha ha ha ha—"

"No," said Mikasa.

"What's Asian glow?"

"Many Asian people turn red when they drink alcohol. My mom turns red after only a couple sips. If I drink, even just a little, I won't be able to hide it."

The parking lot echoed with the group's laughter.

"So, you'll never be able to hide it from your parents," they said.

"No."

They laughed all over again.

"That su-u-ucks."

Wrestling off a smile, Jean took the bottle from Mikasa's hand. "You're a bunch of assholes," he said. "Stop laughing. This is your fault, Eren."

"_My_ fault? It's not _my_ fault Mikasa's got a biological form of a breathalyzer. It's her mom's fault."

"You're an idiot."

Connie extended his hands and put his wrists together. "Mikasa, I want to see you go Super Saiyan."

"_Ka-me-ha-me_—no." Mikasa turned and took Giovanni with her. "Let's go inside."

# # #

Lights spun colors and chaos around the gymnasium. It smelled like body odor and dirty feet. Shoes were not permitted on the gymnasium floor and had been locked away in storage.

When the music switched to a Latin song, a collective _Ayyyeee_ of pride and solidarity broke over the crowd and palms were raised and the raised hands congregated to the middle of the floor. These were the songs Noralis and Eren separated from the group and danced near the middle. Eren pulled her tight to him and they writhed against each other. With both hands, she cupped the back of his head and gripped him to her face. He did the same with one of his hands; the other hand fell very low on the slope of her back. They gazed into each other's eyes. They never kissed, just hovered, inches away, making each other want more and more, but never giving it.

The beat changed. The bass pounded. A rap song played and people moved from front to back and grinded and thrashed. It was raunchy and dirty. The chaperones passively stood by the gym's walls and pretended not to see as girls turned and bent over and boys symbolically took them from behind. Where the cuss words were censored out, everybody filled in with shouts.

Everybody united and merged when the line dances played. They faced the same way and moved as a single organism. Eren and Mikasa taught Giovanni to do the Wobble. He danced between Eren and Mikasa, and they stood on either side of his shoulders, telling him he was doing great, that's it, you got it, yeah, yeah, yeah. Behind his punched-out eyes, the emptiness had filled with a growing light. Dancing together with friends—Eren, Mikasa, Noralis, Armin, Annie, Connie, Sasha, and Jean—Giovanni was whole and precious and new. One of his elusive smiles peeked out and they smiled and loved him, and they loved each other, and they loved the world, and they loved tonight the most out of all nights so far.

Then the song changed. They were back to Latin music. Instead of moving to the middle, Noralis took Giovanni. Eren took Mikasa. Embarrassed, Giovanni stood still and smiled nervously as Noralis swung his lanky arms and rolled her pretty hips and her pretty hair splashed everywhere. Giovanni laughed like a whisper.

For a moment, Eren and Mikasa watched them and glowed with a near-parental fondness. Then Eren drew Mikasa in and they danced.

Mikasa knew she didn't have Noralis's sensuality; she didn't have gushing hair and full lips and large round breasts. And never did boys turn to stare at her butt when she walked by. But the way Eren danced with her made Mikasa feel like more than a flat sexless alien entity with nothing to be desired. He made her feel like a sensual being with lips and hair and legs and hips, and a long landing strip of sweet skin for fingertips to touchdown and glide along, with the full potential to be loved and appreciated.

Eren put his forehead to her forehead, as he'd done with Noralis. "Save another dance for me?"

Mikasa nodded and his head was nodded with her by the movement. He pulled her by the dip of her back, curving her against him. The lights dimmed and sank into a magnetic blue. The beat slurred into a slow song.

Eren and Mikasa separated and unwrapped their arms from each other and then wrapped their arms around their respective dates. Mikasa spoke kindly to Giovanni. Did he like dancing with Noralis? He did. Was he having fun? He was. Only dance with me, please? he said. Oh . . ., she said. —You look pretty, he said. —Thank you, she said; you look nice too.

His red tie matched her red dress.

Mikasa saw Armin and Annie together. Her wrists rested on his shoulders. His hands rested on her back. When they rotated and Armin's face came into view, Mikasa smiled. He smiled back. They shared a moment of knowing the other was having a good time and this made them both content.

# # #

In the enclosed breezeway, two Gatorade watercoolers that the athletics used during games were set up, one at each end of the hall, filled and ready to rehydrate students who had heated up while grinding their bodies together inside the gym. Mikasa grabbed a mini Dixie cup and jammed the dispenser with her thumb. A feeble spatter of water dribbled down. Eren and Connie took the cooler by the handles and tilted it forward. Water sloshed to the front, gathering in the duct. A stream spurted out into Mikasa's cup. She passed the cup to Jean. He drank and passed it to Sasha.

"This ratchet-ass school," a girl in line said.

"For real," Connie said.

He and Eren tipped the cooler so the girl could fill her cup next. She went off to the side and sat on the floor against the wall where other sweat-sheened students rested and fanned themselves.

"Ay," Connie said. "Grab Gio a cup." Sasha held a cup under the dispenser. Eren and Connie further tilted the cooler. The thin spout ebbed to a trickle. Sasha gave the filled water cup to Giovanni. "Can one a y'all find us a spot to sit down?"

"It looks packed in this area," Jean said. "I'll check around the corner." His feet padded away on the tile. When they lifted, the undersides were gray and dirty as if he'd been running around outside, barefooted.

Mikasa took another Dixie cup and poised it under the cooler. Slowly it filled.

"This school _is_ ratchet," Connie said. "We're breathing in each other's feet-funk; I'm drenched in sweat that ain't even mine; and we all about to be falling out with dehydration, man."

"This is how it is every year," Armin said.

"But this is the last time," Sasha said. "After tonight, we're never going to another Homecoming Dance ever again."

"Damn, Sasha. Why you have to say it like that?" Connie rubbed his shaved head. "Is it just me or is everything moving too fast? It's ten o' clock already." The water oozed from the dispenser now. Mikasa caught the last few drip-drops. "Cooler's empty, dawg." Connie and Eren hoisted it by the handles and set it aside. They'd managed to drain out enough to fill two more cups. Mikasa administered the cups to Annie and Noralis. They shared the drinks with their respective dates.

"Things are moving faster than I can keep up with," Eren said. "But tonight's been better than the other years." He drank from his shared water cup. A lipstick print stained the rim.

"That's the truth," Connie said, and clapped Eren on the chest. Water swished in the water cup. Eren fumbled it then steadied it. "We haven't been in a group like this since we was Freshmen. Can you believe that?"

"It's a shame," Sasha said. "It could've been like this all four years. What were we thinking?"

The group looked at each other and savored their togetherness. Mikasa looked at them all. She memorized them all and closed her eyes. Her friends were disheveled and sweaty in their dress clothes, smiling inside her head. She opened her eyes again and saw them in real-time just as she had pictured them.

"Better late than never," said Armin.

Jean's dirty naked feet padded back over. "There's a spot around the corner. It's small. Some of us will have to stand."

Jean, Eren, Armin, and Connie stood while the others sat and squeezed on the dirty floor to rest. Noralis and Sasha rubbed their aching soles. Armin stood over Annie. She held her knees and stared off. They didn't speak, wandering next to each other inside their thoughts. This worked for them. Jean came up and stood next to Mikasa. In the last couple years, his height had spurted taller than that of Eren, even. And in the last few months, he'd let the top of his hair grow out. He'd bleached it platinum. Hair wax set it back off his forehead and he styled it high, which made his long face appear longer.

"Mikasa," Jean said. "You've changed."

She looked up at him. "Changed how?"

"It's hard to explain. I have more of a sense of it rather than something specific in mind," he said. "You're smaller now."

"You're just bigger."

"No."

Mikasa leaned back against the wall. Cool concrete pressed along her back. Mikasa rolled her face and cooled her profile on the wall. At the other end, Eren was standing beside a seated Giovanni. They were reaching to each other. Their hands were connected. Eren was walking Giovanni through a handshake, sequencing together different motions as he invented it. Giovanni was smiling, doing as Eren told him. They were both smiling, enjoying it.

"I'm glad Giovanni's having a good time," Mikasa said. "I should thank all of you."

"Why? What the hell did any of us do?"

"You made him feel like he belongs."

"No," Jean said. "That was you. He didn't ask _us_ to be his date." Jean drank from his half-empty water cup. "You were really going to give us the credit." He shook his head.

"Sometimes I'm wrong when I try to predict how things'll turn out. Eren made me nervous when he didn't understand the situation right away."

"Eren's always been slow. He's an idiot."

"Giovanni has multiple people who want to be there for him. If for some reason, I'm not—if I can't—I know one of you will take care of him. He can't always speak up for himself, and people treat him like he doesn't exist. I don't want him to be alone," she said. "If he hadn't asked me to be his date, we'd both be alone tonight. I'm lucky to have met him."

"You wouldn't have been alone," Jean said. "You still would've had us." He touched his water cup to her cheek. It left a print of condensation on her skin.

Loneliness was a labyrinth. Finding an escape wasn't straightforward; these were Mikasa's thoughts. It was not what she said: "I know," she said. "But Giovanni brought us all closer together, and I've never felt more at home with all of you than right now at this moment. I don't want it to end." She raised her chin and looked up at him. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be so serious."

"I like that about you," he said. "Most people never get real with you. I mean, just look at these fools—"

They watched three boys twist the lid off the second watercooler. They dumped tied used condoms inside and fastened the lid.

Jean's face wrung with revulsion. "Everything feels like bullshit. People talk so much bullshit, and they do so much bullshit. But when I'm with you, I'm reminded of things that matter." Jean fell quiet and he and Mikasa thought of things that they believed mattered above other things. Many of those things aligned. Many of them didn't. "It's easy to get distracted by all the bullshit going on. The important stuff's forgotten about," he said. "I should dump that cooler before somebody drinks out of it."

"I'll help."

"No, stay. Keep resting your feet. Connie, get your ugly mug over here."

# # #

It was 10:30 PM.

A line of girls waited to use the girls' restroom. Mikasa was the last in line. When it was her turn, the handicapped stall became available and she went in and lifted the red flare over her hips. She finished and went to the sink. Before she pushed the faucet on, the door opened and two voices jumbled into the bathroom. Instantly, Mikasa recognized Noralis's voice as one of speakers. They were in the middle of a conversation. There was the sound of a zipper. A cosmetic bag was rummaged through. A compact clicked open.

"I know I'm gone sound like a real bitch when I say this," Noralis was saying, "but when he talks to you, he gets way too close. And I'm just like, boy, back up, you're grossing me out with that."

"Goddamn, Nora. Can you be any more of a bitch? He's autistic or whatever. You can't be going around talking shit about something like that."

"I know I sound like a bitch, Yenaida. So shut the fuck up. It makes me uncomfortable. Okay? He whispers in your face with stank breath. Don't tell me that don't make you uncomfortable."

The girl said nothing.

"At least I ain't fake. The _on-ly_ reason Mikasa brought that kid tonight is 'cause she hates herself and needed to score they approval points to feel better about her lil' anorexic emo ass."

"Nora, chill with that. For real. What's the matter with you?"

It was silent for what seemed like a long time. Then there was a drowning sobbing sound like somebody coming up out of the water for oxygen. Noralis was crying.

"Oh, honey. Honey_._ Talk to me. _¿Qué pasó?_"

Nora's voice was indecipherable, whispering between restrained sobbing breaths.

"You been following it religiously?"

The response was another strained, crying whisper. Noralis gasped shallowly, dreadfully, as if only the top quarter of her lungs were functioning.

"Do your man know?"

Quietly the two moved around on their bare feet. A faucet was pushed. Water jetted into the sink. It shut off. Both voices were dropped to whispers. Now they were speaking in Spanish. Their feet padded on the floor. The door opened and shut. It was silent.

Mikasa waited and listened to the silence. Then her eyes slid to the mirror. An inner violence clutched her. She saw her hands snatch at her hair, tearing it from her scalp in wads. Then her eyes worked like needles to thread the pieces of hair back into her injured head. This was all her imagination. She breathed and calmed and the imagery burned to liquid and drained down into the blackest matter of her subconscious. With the heel of her palm, she hit the faucet and one at a time, she rinsed the soap from her hands.

She shook off a sheet of water and stuck her washed hands beneath a dryer. A blast of wind and oven-heat baked off the dampness. Then she left the stall, went out the bathroom door, and entered the breezeway. Volunteer faculty were refilling the watercoolers. Mikasa moved toward the gym doors. Each footstep stuck to the tile with all the immeasurable filth of high school students.

"Hey, Mikasa."

Mikasa turned to the voice. Ymir was leaned against the wall, waving her closer. Even though Ymir wasn't on the team, she was with a handful of basketball girls. As Mikasa approached, the team cut her a curious side-eye then continued with their side conversations.

"You look good in red," Ymir said.

"Thanks. I like what you did with your hair." Ymir's short twists were now in a fohawk with a fade at the sides. She wore a dress shirt, a purple tie, and khakis.

"You all right?" Ymir said. Her eyes had an otherworldliness about them. Like she could see inside, and though, and between, across all angles and mediums instantaneously.

"Yeah? Are you all right?"

Ymir licked her lips. "I'm hurtin'."

"Why are you hurting?"

Ymir turned her eyes and nodded at something across the breezeway and Mikasa tracked after Ymir's gesture and found the Homecoming Queen, Historia Reiss, surrounded by four baseball players. "I'm hurtin'."

"What are you doing over here, then? Go talk to her. I've seen you two talking in Art class."

"It ain't that simple." She dragged a hand over her mouth and kept it on her chin like a modern version of Socrates' philosopher statue. Her eyes were dark with a suppressed anguish. "Goddamn," she whispered. "She's stunning."

"Go talk to her."

"It's not the time yet."

"When will the time be?"

"I always know when the time will be." Ymir looked at Mikasa, seeing across all angles and mediums instantaneously. "Baby girl might wanna take notes."

# # #

It was 11 PM.

The music faded away. The dancing ceased. Everyone turned. Lights converged onto two representatives from the Student Homecoming Committee. The DJ gave them a wireless microphone. The speakers crackled with static as they turned it on. A blond girl spoke first. He name was Hailee Cunningham.

"Hello? Hi, y'all." When she heard her own voice bounce back, she continued: "I'd like to ask y'all to join me in an applause for our DJ who's provided a sick mix of music tonight." She turned to look at the DJ. "Thank you." Everybody followed her lead and applauded and hollered. Then it died down. "I also want to thank our Student Homecoming Committee for answering the call to arms and joining together to make this an unforgettable night for everybody. The gymnasium's never looked so beautiful." Another applause. Cheers. Slightly less spirited. "And last but certainly not least, thank you, faculty and staff, for chaperoning and hosting this awesome night." The crowd brought their palms together repeatedly. "As the dance draws to a close, I'd like to ask our Homecoming King and Queen to step forward and share one dance together. Where y'all at?"

Heads turned. Eyes searched. Fingers began jabbing directions in the air.

"She's right there. Right over there!"

The lights circled and picked Historia Reiss out from the crowd. Her bright smile gleamed. She waded through the bodies toward the DJ table.

The boy representative took the mic. It was Reiner Braun. "Come on, Eren. We all see you." He stared and beamed his sightline through the crowd like a flashlight and it landed directly between two heads where Eren's face hung. When his view landed, what Reiner saw was a face of brick and nothing else. Only for an instant did Reiner see it. Then the overhead lights shed over Eren and the face was changed. Eren displayed his teeth and turned on his expertness, his acceptableness. The brick was gone. Noralis and Connie jointly shoved on his back, guiding him from the edges of the crowd toward the front.

Eren was surged next to Historia. It was the first time they'd stood side by side. Historia looked like a doll next to him, all dainty and diminutive; him tall and broad-shouldered. Reiner still had the microphone. The speakers cut. The mic had been shut off. Suddenly Reiner swung an arm around Eren and ducked their heads together. Half turned away from everyone, they gathered in a private conversation. It lasted a moment. What they said, nobody knew. Then, in a fizzle of static, the microphone reconnected to the speakers. The sound system equalized. Reiner lifted the mic.

"Ymir?" he called into the marsh of faces. "Where's Ymir?"

A commotion went off toward the side of the gym. Heads turned. The basketball girls were shouting, bumping Ymir's shoulders. "Ayeeeee." After much encouragement and support, Ymir began her unhurried saunter to the front. That menacing aloofness in her shoulders divided the crowd and people drew out of her way like they'd been repelled by a force. The whole time as Ymir crossed the floor, her mouth was ready to flash that loaded smirk and laugh at the entirety of the world as if the whole world was the biggest prank that'd ever been pulled, and the people living their lives were the dupes that had walked unwittingly into it, which was everybody everywhere.

When Ymir finally stood in front of the crowd, the basketball girls made some racket and Ymir lifted her chin at them.

"Ymir," Reiner said, and the gym went quiet. "Eren says you should get this crown." Reiner displayed the King's crown. It was velvet and purple and tacky, lined by a white faux-fur trim. "He says you deserve to be king."

Historia Reiss smiled a dazzling smile that was also inscrutable and revealed nothing of what she wanted.

A chant had broken out. _Take-It. Take-it. Take-it_, they said.

Ymir took the mic and tilted her dangerous smirk into it. She waited. Reiner conducted the crowd into silence with a falling motion of his hands. The crowd obeyed. Once it was quiet, Ymir spoke into the mic. Her voice was low and easy-listening, and spread through the room like a spill of smoke: "I only got one thing to say. And here it is: I appreciate the gesture, Eren. You all right. I mean that," she said, and her voice rolled smoothly over the heads. "But I don't need nobody telling me I should be king. And I don't need no castoff crown, neither. I AM the One True King."

The gym doors rattled with screams and shouts and handclapping.

"So take your crown," Ymir said. "Put it on your head. And I know homeboy's cuffed. No disrespect to your girl. But there's this special lil' lady looking fine as hell in a red dress. You know her. I'll give you a hint: She's Asian. You need to take her and treat her to a dance. A'ight?" Eren stared. He said something but the mic didn't pick up the words, just an echoey faraway murmur. Ymir ignored him. "Now I'ma need you to move outta the way 'cause I'm about to slide right in there and steal your dance with the queen. No disrespect."

Historia slapped her hands over her mouth and, her bare shoulders shaking, she laughed into her palms. Eren smiled halfway. He did not care about any of it. Ymir gave the microphone to Hailee Cunningham who gave it to the DJ. Still under the lights, Ymir bent her voice to Eren's face and her mouth moved. Eren crossed his arms as he listened. Then Ymir was done speaking to him and locked eyes with Historia. Drawn to each other, they began to drift closer.

Still in front of everyone, Reiner lifted and poised the King's crown over Eren's head. Then he placed it on Eren's hair. Under the lights, Eren caught the awkward crown before it could slide off his head. He smiled an uncanny depthless smile. Music began to play.

Historia Reiss glided over in her silver gown, the Queen's sash crossing her chest and smiled up at Ymir who offered her arm. Historia latched on. Without having to be told, the crowd opened in a circle and, together, Ymir and Historia went to the middle. They faced each other. Historia wound her arms around Ymir's neck. They danced, slow and gentle, and smiled gently at the other.

At first, even though she knew there were maybe a total of four Asian girls enrolled at Lake Valley High, Mikasa searched the crowd for another Asian girl in a red dress. When there was, obviously, nobody else like that, Mikasa appeared in her red dress at the edge of the circle, twisting her fingers behind her back, hoping Eren would see her. After a moment, he did. Reaching out, Eren came toward her and Mikasa untwisted her fingers. Their hands caught and held.

"I didn't think you'd want to dance in front of all these people," he said.

"You told me to save a dance for you," she said.

"Thanks," he said.

For two minutes, they danced. For two minutes, Mikasa buried her ear into Eren's chest. Closing her eyes, she listened and memorized and listened some more.

Other couples gradually joined the slow dance. They poured into the empty floor and the circle closed up. Soon, Mikasa was removed from Eren and forced to watch as his girlfriend covered him in her arms and kissed him deeply on the mouth. And Yes, Mikasa knew the kiss embodied a reminder. That Noralis Was. And Mikasa Was-Not. And for two minutes, the Was had been forced to watch the Was-Not. But the wrong had been righted. The positions were switched. Now they were all standing where they were meant to be.

None of this concerned Mikasa.

When Eren kissed Noralis, he kissed her well. When Eren slow-danced with Noralis, he slow-danced with her well. When Eren wore the King's crown, he wore it well. And when he showed his straight white teeth, he showed them well. Mikasa looked away.

Noralis wasn't dancing with the Eren Jaeger Mikasa knew. In her arms was a cardboard cut-out of a false lookalike persona.

Mikasa went to stand beside Armin.

"You were right," Armin said. "When he's in front of a bunch of people, you can tell it's different from before."

"Different?" Mikasa said. "He looks exactly the same as before, pretending to be somebody else in front of the crowd."

"I don't know. I don't think he's acting that way because he wants to," Armin said. "Now it seems like he's just being dragged along. To me, he looks kind of lonely."

# # #

It was 11:30 PM. The dance would officially end in thirty minutes.

The group stood by their cars. The music pounded like a hammer inside the gymnasium. The stars were out, but there was no moon. A breeze shook their dresses and dress shirts, and refreshed them from the locked-in body steam and teenager miasma. They lingered to discuss their after-party plans.

"I'm taking Annie back to the Jacaranda," Armin said. "She wants to show me around."

"College dorm rooms," Connie said, a slice of teeth in his mouth. "Very nice."

"That's what I'm saying," Eren said.

"They're not," Annie said.

"But college girls," Connie said. His lips closed over the slice of teeth. The insinuations only amplified.

"Surprise, college girls stay in college dorms," Annie said.

"You know what I meant."

"You won't be getting far looking like a twelve-year-old."

"Oh-h-h-h." Jean's fist rose to his mouth. He laughed on it. "Shit, Connie. You're just gonna let her do you like that?"

"Shut your mouth. I can't embarrass Armin's date right in front of him." Connie spoke to Annie now, pointing between himself and her. His voice lowered to a private plea: "Come on, man. We both know I look at least fourteen. Right?"

"Cee Springer," Eren said. His hands were in his pockets. Noralis was holding onto his elbow. "What you got planned for tonight?"

"Us three—" Connie whisked a finger in a circle, stirring up Sasha, Jean, and himself together— "is chillin' at Jean's place. We just want to do something simple. Low-key, you know?"

"Low-key? You?"

"Yeah, man. There's nobody I'd rather be with than the people that's here right now. You feel me?"

"Speak for yourself," Jean said.

"Minus one," Connie amended.

"I feel you," Eren said. He bit his bottom lip as his thoughts stirred up an internal conflict. His hands were deep in his pockets like stones. "And I really wish I could hang with you guys too. But I already said I'd go with Nora to the Blackwoods'. All her friends are gonna be there."

"It's gone be lit," said Noralis.

"No doubt," Connie said. "Every year some crazy shit goes down at the Blackwoods'. They wild."

While the others continued talking, Jean turned to Mikasa. In the night, his platinum hair was silver. "You want to chill with us?" he said.

"I have to take Giovanni home."

"Bring him."

"He has a curfew."

"Then come after," Jean said. "Take him home, then come on over. We'll have food and drinks and we can just chill on the patio. Play some pool, throw some darts. You know."

"Like old people?"

"Like old people," he said. He had sharp incisors that slid out under each of his smiles.

"I'll think about it," said Mikasa.

"All right. Text me what you decide to do."

They said their goodbyes and parted ways to their vehicles. Noralis got into Eren's car after he told her he'd be there in a second, that he wanted to say goodbye to Mikasa and Giovanni. Before she left them alone, Noralis hammered a reminder into Mikasa's eyes: I AM and you ARE-NOT. Mikasa did not mind this. Once Noralis was inside the car, Eren opened his arms and Mikasa entered them and they roped around her, catching her to him.

"I'm sorry we didn't get to dance more," he said. He smelled of salt, faded cologne, and he smelled uniquely and pleasantly of himself. "I know it's not your thing but—" Immediately, the ducts tingled in Mikasa's palms as if she'd stuck her hands into an electric-charged field. "After you take Gio home, you could come with us to the Blackwoods'. They have an elevator inside their house. You should see it."

"You know how I am," she said.

"I know. But I'll there with you."

"You said that before."

"I know, Mikasa. I'm sorry." He seesawed her, swaying her side to side, from the waist up in a parody of their slow dance. His crown had been discarded at the end of the slow dance. "You can think about it," he said. "Nora and I won't be heading there till later. I'll call you. Okay?"

"Okay." Mikasa tightened her arms around him. She took one last mental snapshot, memorizing the feeling of Eren encircled in her arms.

"I had fun," Eren said.

"Me too," she said.

They let go. Then Eren and Giovanni did their handshake. Giovanni performed it perfectly and Eren nodded proudly. "All right, man. That's all right. See you at school, Gio." The handshake, Giovanni would remember, even long after it couldn't be done anymore.

One by one, the cars filed out of the lot. It was now midnight and the gymnasium lights glared on, exposing the students still left on the dance floor.

The final homecoming dance of their lives was irreversibly over. It was in the past, already a memory, retracting farther away from them with each second that ticked by. Parts of the night instantaneously grinded away from their minds like a shoreline, eroded by the repeated flow and ebb of waves as the shore grew smaller and smaller, the memories receding into the ocean without a trace.

The happening, the remembering, the forgetting. All at once.

As Mikasa drove Giovanni home, she replayed the night in her head, as faithfully as she could, from beginning to end.

* * *

a/n: there's a lot planned for next chapter, including alternate timelines. it will take me some time to write it. Luckily, I have portions already written from a long time ago because my writing process is a scramble-brained mess. i write things out of order.

Thank you so much for the review, Mango. I haven't had any feedback since chapter 2 which was almost 4 months ago. So it was really really reaaaaally nice to get something. my heart pounded when i read it. thank you for reading and trying out this type of AU story even tho it's not your thing. AU is not my thing either tbh. So i totally understand.


	7. The After-Party

a/n: 11k words. so a long one. at least i wrote it faster than my usual pace.

warning: violence, foul & sexual language, bad stuff... I think this chapter is a risky one but it was always gonna happen

* * *

The After-Party

Miles from town, there was a secluded lake. This secluded lake was where the Blackwoods lived. Behind the house, cars were parked along the edge of a pine forest. Stains of shadows glided in the night toward the outdoor patio. From wall to wall, light poured from the Blackwoods' glass windows, glass doors, glass everything. Through the glass, Mikasa saw rapids of people. The back patio, too, swarmed and teemed with people from Homecoming. Most were dressed in casual night-out fashion: girls in short shorts, boys in jeans. A few boys hadn't changed out of their Homecoming dress.

A hard bass pounded the house. The glass vibrated. Images in the house warbled slightly as if the glass had blown outward, stretching on each pound without breaking. As Mikasa, after parking her car, climbed a grassy incline to the outdoor patio, she saw a waterfall running a motorized cascade into a pool. The Blackwoods had two pools. The larger of the pools had a volleyball net stretched across it. Off to the side was a hot tub. Its jets stirred up a hot foam.

"Ay."

Mikasa turned. Ymir was climbing up the incline too and fell in step with Mikasa. She was wearing a Champion tee and Air Jordan's. "That bunny on your shirt's stuntin'."

"Oh." Mikasa looked down. Printed on the front of her oversized shirt was a cottontail rabbit wearing an oversized hat.

"I like it," Ymir said. The ground leveled. Their shoes muttered onto soapstone tile. They passed the waterfall; they passed the volleyball net; they passed a few wrought iron patio tables and reached the house. Two glass doors gave onto white tile and a white carpeted living room. Inside, countless bodies were churning among themselves as if they were all caught in the whirl of two giant electric beaters. Ymir didn't go in.

"Your boy's inside with his lady." Ymir's hands slid into her pockets. She leaned her shoulder on a classical style column that supported the outdoor awning.

"You seem on edge," Mikasa said. "Is something the matter?"

"Nah. I'm good." Ymir scuffed the bottom of her shoe.

"Is Historia here?"

"Nah, she's with her friends. They had they own lil' get-together." Ymir nodded her chin at the living room. "They in there, on the couch." Mikasa searched the glass door for a handle or knob. "Push it." Mikasa did. The doors swung in. Before she strode off inside, Ymir took Mikasa by the wrist.

"It's not gonna change anything," she said.

"What do you mean?"

"If you're here or if you're not here, it don't make a difference. Eren is Eren. I'ma be chillin' outside if you wanna find me."

In the living room, Eren sat on a white leather couch. His hands wrapped Noralis's hips as she swayed in front of him in her high-waisted shorts, a beer bottle in her hand, raised over her head. She rolled her hips inside his palms. His hands rolled with her and, his face uplifted, Eren smiled with a kind of sweetness and affection and mischief. She leaned a knee between his legs and dipped her head. Her hair splashed over their faces and immersed them as they kissed.

Then Noralis spun around and started moving to the middle of the room where other girls danced and writhed and grinded, alluding to all the breathtaking things they could do naked. Eren's gaze dropped and fixed to Noralis and he snatched her by the belt loop and pulled her back to him. Still dancing, Noralis slid backward onto his knee, drawn into a reverted straddle, her thighs parted around his quad, riding his leg, still dancing but with the upper half of her body. Eren held her waist in the crook of his elbow and turned his head to the side to drink from his beer bottle.

When Mikasa entered the living room, Noralis leapt from Eren's knee, "Mikasa!" and threw her arms open. Noralis sank into Mikasa. Mikasa froze. Eren leaned forward on the couch. His eyes were dark and liquid. Noralis grabbed a beer from the cooler sitting in the living room and opened it. She loaded Mikasa's hand.

"Dance with me, string-bean."

Noralis turned and bent down. Her lower half fused to the zipper of Mikasa's jean shorts. Mikasa cringed, stock-still. The high-waisted shorts rasped on Mikasa's jean shorts. Noralis's bracelets jangled. She whipped her hair over her right shoulder, watching where they contacted.

"Nora, Nora, Nora—" Eren was laughing. "Mikasa just got here. Let her, like, acclimate. Give her a minute." Noralis ignored him, grinding on Mikasa's crotch. With the flat of his palm, Eren popped her on the butt. Noralis shot up straight.

"_Papi,_" she said, complainingly.

"What?"

"Harder, _por favor_."

"Aha-ha-ha-ha—Okay, let me up. I'm getting up—that's enough, seriously—" Eren swept Noralis out of the way and rose from the couch. Mikasa knew, at some point later, those two were going to hook up. "Did you see the elevator?" he said.

"How does anybody this rich exist here?" said Mikasa. "Where do they get their money?"

"They own _everything_. It's disgusting."

"I feel almost scandalized."

"Mmm." Eren raised his bottle. "That's the fucking truth." He drank to it. Mikasa inspected the bottle that'd been implanted into her grasp. After a second, she copied Eren and drank. She stopped. Eren's bottle hung, drained, in his fingertips. Mikasa copied Eren again, drinking with her head bent back. Mikasa stopped again.

"Don't drink it if you don't like it," Eren said.

"It's okay," she said.

"Here, look, come with me." Eren took her by the hand and walked her out of the living room. "Nora, we're going to the kitchen."

"Bye-ee," she said. Nothing could distract her from dancing.

As Eren walked Mikasa to the kitchen, he vanished behind a waterfall of shoulders and shapes, and Mikasa zigzagged, led only by a bodiless grip on her hand. Eren's face turned back over his shoulder, buried in people among people. They met eyes. He continued, leading her, mashed between walls of bodies. They broke into the kitchen and the world opened up again. Like everything else, the kitchen was lavish and pristine and sickening with its opulence. Next to the stainless-steel fridge, on a granite countertop, sat an anthology of liquor.

"See?" Eren said. "There's a whole bar. You have choices."

In front of Mikasa, the different handles were like the necks of unfamiliar instruments in a bizarre orchestra and, somehow, she was supposed to pour music out of them. Mikasa stared silently.

"Let me do something," Eren said. "I got an idea of what you might like." He surveyed the line of liquor. Then he opened the fridge. He took out a jug of orange juice, a jug cranberry juice. From the line of unfamiliar instruments, he took a bottle of flavored rum and whiffed it. "Damn," he said. He poured it into a red solo cup. Then he poured the orange juice. Then he splashed in the cranberry. He brought the cup to his mouth. The concoction flowed over his tongue, down his throat. He mediated on it. He handed it to Mikasa.

"Try this. See if you like it."

She tried it. It furled over her taste buds, smooth and sweet. Her throat muscles took it nicely. "Yes. This is better."

"Just be careful with it. The alcohol's disguised in all that fruit flavor. You won't start feeling it till it hits all at once, but by then it's too late. Even if you think you're doing good, just sip. That's your zone. Okay? Slow and sip."

"Okay."

He grabbed a plastic water bottle from the fridge. "Trade you," and removed the unwanted beer from her hand, replacing it with the water. "Take that, double-fist it. You should be good." He bit his lip.

"Okay," Mikasa said. "Thank you."

Eren bit his lip and contemplated the things that could go wrong. "Don't let anybody else make you a drink," he said.

"I'm not stupid."

His teeth didn't let go of his lip for a suspect amount of time.

# # #

On the outdoor patio, a handful of people swam in the pool with their clothes on. A deflated volleyball was banged around and tossed over the net. Teenage bodies careened down a child-sized waterslide. Far enough away from the pool to keep dry, Ymir sat at a wrought iron table with a latticed surface. Three girls sat around her. They were all smiles and their bodies radiated signals and their done-up smoky eyes communicated dark intentions. Ymir sat back. She let their bold-faced flirting tease her ego.

Hand in hand, Eren and Noralis moved past the table. Eren paused.

"Ymir," he said. Ymir ignored him. Eren ignored her ignoring him. He said: "If you see Mikasa, can you tell her we'll be back soon? She's in the bathroom."

Ymir wrenched her head around. She eyed the two. "You shouldn't of asked her to come if you was just gon' ditch her."

"I'm not ditching her. We're headed out to the car for a second. That's all."

Ymir's freckles wrangled viciously over her face. Her teeth came out and sneered.

"I'm not ditching her," Eren said. "I'll be right back."

"I heard you the first time," Ymir said. "But it don't seem like it was me you was talking to on that second go-around."

"Bitch, who else would he be talking to?" Noralis snatched Eren's hand. Ymir's mouth slanted into her loaded smirk and her eyes shined, illuminated by an inward malicious amusement. Noralis said: "Ya best wipe ya nasty face of that smirk fore I slap it off," and dragged Eren away. Eren looked back and saw Ymir, a shadow. Eerie otherworldly eyes shined in the dark like panther eyes.

"Why she got to act all snotty?" Noralis said. "I hate that."

"Ymir's Ymir. That's the way she acts all the time."

"I hate that nasty face she makes. Makes me want to knock all her teeth out."

Eren grabbed Noralis around the waist. They swayed to his car, his arms encircling her from behind. "Don't worry about her. She provokes people on purpose. You're reacting the way she wants you to react. You got to ignore it." He was kissing her ear. Then he kissed her neck. Then he slid the sleeve just off her shoulder and caught her bra strap in his teeth. He tugged. There was a light snap and sting.

Together, they clambered into the back of his car.

# # #

Ymir's freckles were wrangled over her face again when Mikasa walked outside. Ymir flagged Mikasa's attention. Sipping from her red solo cup, Mikasa came over and took the latticed wrought iron chair across from her. A body thundered down the waterslide. Mikasa longingly watched.

"That looks fun," she said.

"Let me see this." Ymir took Mikasa's cup and tilted it to her mouth. "You don't play. That shit's dangerous. Go easy, now."

Ymir drank from a bottle of Dos Equis. The TV advertisement flashed in Mikasa's head featuring 'The World's Most Interesting Man' and his debonair panache: _Stay thirsty, my friends . . ._

"How come you're by yourself?" Mikasa said. "Shouldn't you be with your friends?"

"Ain't none of these fools my friends."

"I thought you were friends with practically everyone."

"Nah."

"Who do you consider a friend?"

Ymir scratched at the beer's label. Her shoulders lifted and dropped. "I don't," she said. "There's nobody here that's like me."

"So?" Mikasa said. "All my friends are completely different. But we're friends anyway."

"Yeah? Y'all like one of those diversity posters where they multicolored hands are all piled in the middle?" Ymir sneered.

Mikasa stuck out her fist. Ymir ridiculed Mikasa through her eyes and sneering mouth. Mikasa didn't lower her hand. The sneer slipped. It fell away. Ymir rolled her eyes. She shook her head. She inhaled, exhaled. "Fuck it." Leaning forward, Ymir put her fist on top of Mikasa's and Mikasa steered them through an improvised handshake like Eren did with Giovanni. Ymir smiled incredulously as if she couldn't believe she was letting herself do something so stupid and ridiculous.

"Girl, you messed up already." Ymir leaned back. She drank from her Dos Equis. "Lightweight."

"This is my first time drinking alcohol."

"You too much."

"Want to play ping-pong?" Under the awning was a ping-pong table, ignored by everyone else.

"That's used for they beer pong."

"Do you ever play?"

"Every now and then. But these fools take everything too far. They don't come out here to have fun. They come out here to die."

"What about basketball? Do you want to play?" Mikasa pointed at the side of the house.

"A'ight," Ymir said. "I'll ball with you."

"I've only played a couple times years ago. So, you'll have to teach me."

Around the side of the house, a basketball hoop was installed into a 30 by 30 feet slab of concrete. Ymir and Mikasa stood on the free throw line.

"Can you dribble?" Ymir bounced the ball over to Mikasa.

Mikasa dribbled in place for a bit. Then she cut the ball between her legs and returned to a standing dribble.

Ymir grinned. "A'ight. I see you."

"I used to play with Eren sometimes when we were in middle school. There's a hoop at his house."

Ymir taught Mikasa the basics of basketball: How to guard, how to steal the ball, how to get the rebound. She demonstrated the proper mechanics for shooting and then threw from the three-point line. The ball went up and slid through the net with a similar sexiness of a leg slipping into pantyhose.

"If you're this good, how come you're not on the team?" Mikasa said.

"I didn't want to be a stereotype," Ymir said. "But baby girl got some skill. You a natural athlete. Maybe _you_ shoulda been on the team."

"Yeah, right. Can you imagine me on the basketball team?"

"That's exactly what I'm talking about. Maybe you coulda been a baller if you didn't take one look at yourself and think, 'I don't look it so I can't be it.' In a lot of ways, I'm a stereotype. People know what to expect the moment they see me. Maybe I do it intentionally. It's easier to conform to what they expect than to disassemble all they preconceptions. You feel me? Maybe I got more in common with Eren than I figured. I don't know."

"You're not a stereotype, Ymir."

Ymir dribbled. She shot. The ball fell clean through the net. A pleasing whisper of ball against rope. Ymir's arm was poised above her head, her wrist bent with how she'd taken the ball in, releasing it effortlessly from her palm with little more than a flick. She retrieved the ball and dribbled in place. She stopped. The ball fixed to her hands.

"Want to be a baller?"

Ymir threw the ball. It drummed the ground once and entered Mikasa's palms.

"Okay."

# # #

In the sixth grade, Noralis lost her virginity. She'd been taken to the park by a sixteen-year-old boy who didn't like her at all but convinced her otherwise. They did it inside a firetruck where, during the day, children would crawl around and push replica buttons and spin a replica steering wheel. Just a week prior, Noralis went to the park to play on the swings. After losing her virginity, the park wasn't a place to play on swings anymore. It was a place of surfaces and hidden spots. Noralis was the first girl Eren had met with a story such as this, though there were hundreds of girls in Lake Valley, millions of girls around the globe, very much like Noralis.

After they'd been together for a while and Noralis learned Eren was different from the other boys she'd ever been with, she told him something that she wouldn't repeat for the rest of her life: After the sixteen-year-old boy had abandoned her, she couldn't stop crying so she stabbed her fingers down her throat and vomited and then cut her forearms with a razor blade, which healed into dark stripes which she showed to Eren. Eren had kissed them like most boys with bleeding hearts did when they met sad crazy girls, as indisputable proof that they couldn't be rattled or repulsed by sad, gruesome things. Or sad crazy girls.

Noralis told Eren she had imagined scraping the flesh from her bones and immolating away all the unnamable things that was the death of little girls and once it was gone, she'd wrap her flesh back on and then magically she'd revert and undo what had been done. But after it happened once, you'd want it to happen again. Outbreaks of hunger usurped your flesh and her thirteen-year-old interior membrane would line with an unprovoked coating of mucous and she'd have to change her panties during the middle of the school day. To get back the boy who abandoned her, she would do anything. Then to get any boy at all, she would do anything for any boy anywhere. This was how it went for the next three years.

Noralis became ambivalently promiscuous and confused and universally angry, and she sexualized herself while loving boys and simultaneously hating boys. By the age of sixteen, she garnered a certain reputation. And by the time she entered his life, Eren had already heard the disreputable stories about Noralis THE SLUT, which he completely ignored. Within a week of meeting her, Eren would fall in love.

Eren was a horrible judge of character but he had a good imagination. And he could imagine, against and in spite of everything else, the potential of a person's character. Sometimes, his ideas about people could be nearly prophetical and in time the person of reputed horrible character turned out as Eren had originally thought. He wasn't special or more insightful than others. Often he was wrong about the characters around him in the most precise way. Noralis wasn't yet the girl Eren believed she was. But his imagination was quite stubborn and resistant to evidence that refuted his beliefs and this kept him loving people and trusting people for much longer than they deserved to be loved and trusted. Whether his thoughts about Noralis were prophetical or merely groundless idealisms, he didn't know.

But he did know that Noralis was often a target because of the bad reputation tattooed to her.

They were in the back of the car, sucking on each other's tongues when, behind Eren, the door was jerked open from the outside. His head fell back. A white cone of light spouted in and struck Noralis's face and puddled headlights in her wide brown eyes. She shrieked. Eren twisted his neck, squinting into the beam. The light swung away. Eren's vision dimmed.

Noralis hadn't stopped shrieking. Legs were running away across the lawn. Sperry shoes flung up from the grass. Noralis cussed in crying screams, her hands cupping her chest and between her legs, concealing. Eren fumbled out the open door. He was still mostly dressed. He fell to his face. Before his feet could even hit the ground, he was running, racing, chasing after the Sperry's flinging away from him. His arms swung, charging. He ran, slow at first, his long legs taking some time to build strength and momentum. Then he flew, his legs blurring, arms pumping. Blood boiled through his thoughts. His chest thundered and blazed. In a red-hot fever, he ran faster than he'd ever run before.

People watched as the two cut across the patio to the other side. A Sperry flew off. The boy never stumbled. Each stride closed the distance between them. Leaping from the tiled patio onto more grass, they ran and with nothing to slow him, Eren's legs exploded him right behind the boy and he grabbed him by the shirt. The button-down ripped open and the boy ran straight out of his shirt, Eren clutching empty cloth. Eren flung it away and dived forward and tackled the boy to the ground. They both went down and crashed onto soft, manicured grass. It didn't bruise or hurt. It was the same as falling onto a cushion. Rich people had cushiony lawns. Eren wrangled the boy and crushed the hand clutching the phone and squeezed it from his grip.

As the boy thrashed and twisted, restrained under Eren, he screamed and cussed and made demands: "It was just a joke! A fucking joke! Get off me!" Eren told him to shut the fuck up or he'd knock him the fuck out. With the boy pinned, wedged between Eren's legs, Eren investigated the phone. The lock screen came on.

"What's the password?"

The boy was still screaming and demanding for Eren to get off because it was only a joke and Eren was being a fucking moron. Eren lifted the phone. "Give me your goddamn password before I smash your fucking phone on the fucking ground."

The boy told Eren the password. Eren inputted it. The lock screen went away. Eren opened the photos. Several videos appeared in the library. Eren's eyes roved over the still-frames of girls, some of whom he knew, many of whom he didn't, many of them he identified as underclassmen, frozen in a blurred mid-motion, none of them wearing clothes. Of the faces that were visible, most were gaped open in a frozen perpetual scream. Eren tapped on the most recent video, the one of Noralis and himself and deleted it. Then he opened the archive folder and deleted it from there for permanent eradication. No possibility of retrieval.

"You deleted it, right?" the boy said. "Give me back my phone. It's gone now, so give me back my phone."

"A'ight." Eren got up. The boy got up, shirtless, his hand extended. Eren displayed the phone in a taunt, juggling it. Then he abruptly spun, faster than the boy could react, his arm cocked. The phone flew across the lawn, rising and falling on an arc, like a baseball thrown from outfield to infield. It crossed into the patio. There was a small splash in the pool.

"Go get it, motherfucker."

The boy cussed and screamed and his arms bowed up and he convulsed. Eren opened his arms invitingly. The boy knew better, his fists remained balled and tensed, vibrating hotly at his sides, shivering with bottled-up violence. Eren walked back toward the patio. As he stepped by the crumpled button-down shirt, he dug in his shoe and grinded it into the grass. Green and black stains smeared it. He continued to the patio. People watched him, whispering, their heads tracking his path from one side of the patio to the other. At the other side, Noralis was waiting for him. Immediately, the blood drained from Eren's thoughts and he could feel his temperature drop from a fever pitch to ice-cold. His prickled hair laid back flat on his neck and arms. He took Noralis into his chest.

"You okay?" He held her tight. She was small, hugging him at the waist. "I got him. He took a video but I deleted it."

"You did?"

"Yeah. And I made sure to delete it completely off his phone. So you're all right, you'll be all right."

Noralis buried her face in Eren's chest and groped his back. She squeezed him as hard as she could, her nails piercing his back muscles as she was gripped by a paradoxical feeling of wanting to crush him and crack his spine with how much she loved him. Eren had a long resilient spine.

"Want to go home?" he said. "Come on, I'll take you home."

Noralis withdrew and held him away with a palm on his chest. "It's fine. I'm fine. Let me go." She didn't mean it. She wanted him to hold her and crush her with how much he loved her. "That skinny white boy fucked with the wrong bitch. I'ma go find his ugly punk-ass and crush his tiny pink balls, I swear to God." She started on a march. Eren took her by the elbow.

"Nora. It's over with. Let's just go home."

"No. If he thinks he gone get away with humiliatin' me—"

"It's over, Nora. Can you please just let it end here? Please?"

"Was it _your_ tits he exposed? Was it _your_ pussy?"

"Just my dick," he said.

"That ain't even saying much."

Eren's mouth fell open. It was like a slap.

"I don't mean it like that," Noralis said. "My phrasing was bad. I'm just saying, I'm the victim in this situation. Don't make it about yourself."

"Do whatever you want, Nora. I don't care. But I ain't helping you. You're on your own." He started away from her. She clutched his arm.

"No. Wait. I'll drop it. Okay? I'll drop it." Eren relaxed. She pulled on his arm and Eren let her take him back toward the double glass doors. "Let's go inside," she said. "I want another drink."

# # #

On the 30 by 30 slab of concrete, Ymir guarded Mikasa. Mikasa faked and skirted the other way. She was caught around the waist.

"Foul," Mikasa said. She jerked left and right. "Foul." Ymir smacked the ball from Mikasa's hands. It bounced away. Trapped in Ymir's arms, Mikasa sweated and caught her breath. "Cheater," she said.

"Hey," a boy shouted. Ymir and Mikasa snapped their faces up. "Y'all about to scissor?" His friend laughed. The boy slapped his friend on the arm, getting him ready for what else he was about shout. The friend stopped laughing. He waited in anticipation. "Y'all gonna put your pussies together and just—" The boy did an aggressive hip-thrust. "Slap 'em together? Bust down?"

The friend smacked one hand with the other, mimicking the sound of skin hitting skin. "And clap yo' titties?" he said. They laughed at how funny they were.

Ymir took her arms off Mikasa. Three feet of space they put between them. Ymir silently bounced the ball. It hit the concrete at a leisurely beat. The boys chugged from beer cans.

"Hey, hey. You like a shaved pussy or a hairy one?" It was the friend now. He was talking to Ymir. "Do you like it smooth and slippery? Or do you like it with those, like, pubey crumbs that, like, get stuck in your throat when you swallow."

"She definitely likes it pubey."

"Shit, dude. I don't think Asians even shave. It's just one big forest down there." They bawled with laughter because they were so funny.

Ymir went for a layup. The net swished. The ball exited. She started away. Mikasa followed. The laughter faded.

"Don't listen to them," she said. "They're drunk."

"I'm invincible, mama," Ymir said. "You the one blushing."

"What?" Mikasa felt her cheeks. "It's probably the alcohol. I don't care."

Ymir softened her eyelids and gave Mikasa a mystifying luminous stare that made you wonder if she could see something nobody else saw.

"I'm surprised you didn't give it right back to them," Mikasa said, "and make them regret trying you."

"Best to lay low right now."

"Why?"

"Can't you read the vibe? Things is getting out of control." They walked to the outdoor patio and it seemed everything had dialed up ten notches. The aftermath of spectacle and excitement hummed all around.

_—Did you seem him tackle the dude? They both ate it. —He's fucking pissed. —Noralis be looking extra thick. But like, all around. —I like a bitch with a tummy. — naw naw naw, hell naw ha ha ha—_

Ymir and Mikasa went inside and into the kitchen. Ymir grabbed another Dos Equis. They went back outside and sat at the latticed wrought iron patio table. Mikasa sipped on her red solo cup. Her water bottle hadn't even been opened yet. Like Ymir said, the ping-pong table was set up for a game of beer pong. On the other side of the pool, a small group of people roasted in the foamy hot tub, wearing nothing but their underwear.

"You don't belong here with all these people actin' a fool," Ymir said. "I'd smack some sense into Eren, but I get the feeling he's gon' get much more than that."

"You've seemed on edge all night. What are you so anxious about?"

"Nothing, baby girl. It's all good." Ymir drank. She put her bottle down and turned her face in profile. Her freckles spun constellations on her cheeks. "We all good." She drank again.

# # #

This time they were upstairs in a guest bedroom. The door was locked. The lights were off.

"I'm sorry, _papi_." Noralis was whispering to him, wrapped in the circle of his arms. "I was scared and mad and I didn't know what I was saying and I didn't know what I was doing. My head was jumbled up. You know what that's like."

Eren understood. "I never heard you scream like that. I never heard nobody scream like that. It had me sick to my stomach. And to realize it was you making that sound. God," he said, shaking his head. "_God_." He rubbed her upper arms, as if she were cold and he were trying to warm a friction into her skin. "You're always so strong, Nora."

"I'm just a fake."

"I don't think so."

They started to kiss. Their hands slid under clothes and they filled their palms with each other's bodies. His was firm. Hers was soft. He opened her buttoned crop-top and she lied on her back. He leaned over her and picked at the center of her bra where the underwire curved together and dug odd indents into her skin. "I been jumbled up," Noralis said. "I been mad and nasty to you and _mi familia_ and everybody. And I don't mean to be. It comes out without me controlling it. I can't stand myself sometimes. I know I'm being a bitch when I'm being a bitch, but I still do it no matter if I don't want to. I can't stop it, _papi_."

Eren tucked a tuft of curls behind her ear. "What you mean? What's going on?"

"Baby, I need to tell you something."

"Okay."

"It's bad. It's really bad. You're gone hate me."

"What is it, Nora?"

"No." She sat up. Her back pressed along the headboard. "I change my mind. I can't tell you."

"Noralis."

Noralis put her face in her hands. "I can't say it. You're gone hate me for real."

"Noralis," he said slowly. She began to cry. Eren watched her shoulders move. It was quiet as Noralis cried into her palms, hidden behind the spout of curly black hair.

As Eren watched her, a seal wrapped over him. He became impervious and inaccessible. He sat back. His intuition floated a suspicion to the forefront of his mind. He thought backward, hunting for past signs and slip-ups. His memory, he discovered, was malfunctioning. The memories all appeared in his mind like vaguely formed clay and he couldn't summon much at all from the past.

"Is there somebody else?" he said, finally.

Her shoulders moved harder. She said nothing. The seal covered Eren. He was totally impervious.

"Who?" he said.

Noralis shook her head. The hair covering her face shifted and swung.

"Who is it?" Eren said. The curls shifted and swung. She cried brokenly into her hands. "Noralis," he said. "_Noralis_," he said. She didn't answer, still crying, her shoulders quietly shuddering. "Goddammit, Noralis. Give me a fucking name." She jumped. Her face came out of her hands. Curls fell down her wet cheeks.

"Milin Patel."

"How many times?" Eren said.

"I don't know, _papi_."

"When'd it start?"

"July?"

"How long?"

"Two months?"

"What the fuck, Nora?"

"At least I'm being honest!"

"Being honest don't erase what you did."

"I'm sorry, baby." Noralis reached for him. He allowed her hands to cup his face. "I love you. I _love_ you." She cried and said she was sorry and begged him not to hate her. Eren didn't hate her. She said she didn't mean to hurt him, that she never wanted to hurt him, ever. Eren's face was not hurt. His eyes were not hurt. He was nothing. Impervious.

"Say something," she begged.

"Yeah, what?"

Her entire face was wet and pearly with tears like she'd been sweating. "You never wanted to do nothing with me. You stopped calling and talking to me. I felt like you stopped caring about me completely." Her soft hands cupped his face, stroking his cheeks.

"So it's my fault, is what you're saying."

"No," she cried. "No."

"I never believed nothing of what they said about you. But you're living up to they expectations now." He clamped her wrists in a vise and dragged her fingers from his face.

She gasped, "Ah," letting him know he was hurting her.

Eren let go. Noralis's wrists were yellow with the imprint of his grip. He got up and moved to the door.

"Eren," she cried after him. "How could you say that to me? I thought you knew me."

"How could you _do_ that to me? I thought you _loved_ me."

"I do, baby. I _do _love you."

"Yeah." He was not angry. He was not hurt. He was nothing. He started to go out.

"I love you, I swear to God. You got to believe me, _papi_—"

"Stop it, Nora—"

"—Don't leave. You can't leave, _papi._ _Papi_, no_._ There's something else I got to tell you. Please, don't leave. Don't leave yet. Listen—"

"Noralis. Stop, just stop. I'm done. I'm not listening to anymore of this." He went out the door and still felt nothing, and perhaps if he could feel something, he would've stayed to listen because the weight of Noralis's tone would've penetrated a normal heart and immobilized the legs. But it didn't matter how Noralis said anything to Eren anymore. He felt nothing of nothing of nothing.

For some time now, both their brains had been deceiving them. For over a year, the neurotransmitters in Eren's brain had increasingly slowed their output of a chemical called dopamine, which was the chemical that produced the feelings of happiness and pleasure. And for the last eight months, the chemical had plateaued at critically low levels. This had made him lethargic and miserable for reasons he couldn't explain and its inexplicability had caused him further distress, so he'd been caught in the vicious circle of feeling miserable for feeling miserable.

Meanwhile, for the last three months or so, Noralis had experienced a deluge of hormones, which made her loving and jealous and suspicious and possessive and compassionate and cruel and weepy and angry, and it made her crave sex frequently, which Eren had generally stopped caring about eight months ago. Unlike Eren, she had an explanation for her brain's spluttering of turbulent intractable emotions. She was simply too scared to reveal the reasons for her behavior to anyone besides that brief impulsive confession to Yenaida in the girls' bathroom during the Homecoming Dance, who had advised her to tell Eren, which Mikasa had overheard. Now, Eren refused to listen.

This was where they stood.

As he walked out the door, Eren concluded that this time his character judgment was based on groundless idealisms, and he knew from experience that when he made this type of judgment error, he was almost always the one who got burned.

# # #

On the outdoor patio, just as Ymir rose from a latticed wrought iron chair, Eren came out of the house and, hands pocketed, he walked over to them. Saying nothing, Ymir nodded. She left. The wrought iron seat, Eren took and heaved himself into.

"Where's she going?" Eren turned his head over his shoulder.

"She said she wanted to give us some alone-time. Whatever that means."

Eren's head turned back around. "How'd she know I was coming outside? Oh, shit—" A surprised look overtook Eren's confused look. He stared, amazed by Mikasa's face. "Your Asian Glow's on."

"What?" Mikasa touched her cheeks.

"But you're not red. You're just pink. I thought your whole face would look like a tomato. But it just looks like a minor sunburn."

"Oh, no. Does it look bad?"

Eren shook his head. "No." He pushed a fingertip into the apple of her cheek and traveled his finger over the geography of her face. "It's here and here, a little bit here. Your lips look redder, too."

The red solo cup was empty. Mikasa had finished Eren's concoction.

"What the hell, Mikasa? I told you to go slow with that. Where's the water at? Did you eat anything after Don Jose? You didn't even eat much while we was there."

"I'm fine. Don't worry about it."

"I'm not, not gonna worry," he said. "But it actually looks like you're holding it better than I thought you would."

"See? I'm okay." Finally, Mikasa opened the water bottle and took a sip. "Everything feels hot. And my heart's pounding. Is that normal?"

"Not where you're at. Drink that water till you finish it."

Silently they sat, Mikasa drinking the water, Eren rubbing his forehead, thinking. She watched him while, internally, he made cognitive electricity and waged war with the lobes of his brain. The grooves already cut into his mindscape deepened with worsening mental habits. He battled his psyche.

"Noralis cheated on me," he said, rubbing his head.

The downy hair on Mikasa's neck bristled. Her body fumed with an intense empathetic anger. She had no idea of what to say to Eren. She had a hundred ideas of what to say to Noralis. "You're too good for her," Mikasa said. "You were always too good for her."

"I feel like I should be more upset than I am," he said. "Is it weird that I don't actually care?" He was looking off to the side. "I don't know if it's 'cause I never loved her," he said, "or if it's 'cause I can't love anything anymore." He shook his head. "That was stupid. Never mind. I sound stupid—" He muttered to himself.

"It's not stupid." Mikasa opened her hand. Eren looked at it. He put his hand in hers. She closed her fingers. "You're not stupid," she said.

Mikasa looked at his eyes, his eyelashes, his hair, his mouth, his jaw, and drank in everything and appreciated him part by part, and then pieced him back together into one image, and he was whole and pure and too much to contain, and her heart constricted and the chambers overfilled. There was a soft pain. There was the dreamy languor of alcohol and she swayed in a sweet dream. She touched Eren sweetly by the eye. She touched him sweetly by the mouth.

"What are you doing?" Eren was about to laugh. "Do I have an Asian Glow too?"

"No."

"You're wasted."

"No, I don't think so."

Laughter blasted out of him like a glaring spotlight. "Aha-ha-ha-ha—" Eren threw his head back. The front legs of his chair lifted off the deck.

"You're so loud," Mikasa said, shushing him. "Look. Those guys are staring at us." She meant the three boys lurking by the ping-pong table. "Is my face ugly right now? I feel like it's red and ugly right now."

Tilted back, balanced on the chair's hind-legs, Eren was crying with laughter. The circuits in his brain sizzled. He was going insane with laughter. "Ugly? Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha, no, no—" He laughed as if there were a tangible thing reaching out of his gullet with two hands, wrenching his teeth apart. "Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha—" His mouth couldn't be opened any wider.

Then it stopped. The blast of spotlight went dark.

The chair's forelegs clashed to the deck. Eren slammed forward, hands flat, palms down, on the table. The latticed wrought iron rang and shook.

Eren had a paralyzed shocked expression, though nothing shocking or paralyzing had happened as far as Mikasa could tell. Inside him a circuit wire had discharged and surged and suddenly blew out. This shocked him and killed the laughter and slammed his jaws shut. On-off, like a switch. Eren's eyes started to gush out saline.

"Shit." Eren covered his face and smashed his eye sockets with the heels of his hands. "_Shit_." He snarled and cussed at himself. His hands balled up and became knuckled fists. He bared his teeth, ground them together.

Behind Eren, the three boys were still staring at him, silhouetted, grouped up by the ping-pong table. One of them was moving his facial muscles, chewing. Mikasa tried to ward off their intrusive eyes with her most menacing glare.

Eren held his breath, every muscle bolted, his teeth gritted, deadlocked inside himself. Mikasa craned her neck, trying to see around his fists. Teardrops fell silently and vanished.

The sky was empty. The stars were outshined by house and patio lights and they shed a green undertone to the empty sky. Eren shuddered and twisted his hands as if he could grip his eyeballs like two faucets and wring them and the plumbing would squeal off.

"I got to get out of here," Eren said. "I need to go home." In the space between his wrists, Mikasa saw saltwater roll down over his lips, wetting them.

"All right. Let's go home."

Mikasa's eyes lifted. The silhouettes had soundlessly and swiftly crossed the patio, stealing behind Eren. Light exposed their faces. Their expressions were like three pits of boiling water, convulsing with heat. Alcohol had scorched away any intelligence. They were pure uninhibited deranged violence. Mikasa leapt to her feet and gasped.

"Eren—"

Eren was hit in the back of the head. His face bounced off the table as if it were rubber, and he seeped down in his chair with gnarled arms and legs, shriveling into knots, hands twisting over his head where injury shrieked in his body. He crumpled to the pool deck.

Mikasa was petrified where she stood.

Not yet comprehending the ordeal, Eren, lying on his side, raised up on his elbow and touched his mouth blankly and experimentally. He spat out pink saliva.

Mikasa dropped to her knees. Her hands hovered over him, not knowing what to do. Eren looked up and past her. There were three boys. One of them was wearing Sperry's and a button-down shirt botched by green and black stains.

"Back off," Mikasa said. She extended her palm. "We were just about to leave. Just let us leave." The biggest of the three was still chewing, moving his mandible, his cheek slightly protruded around a mound which he cradled inside his mouth. None of them paid Mikasa any attention.

Eren rolled off his hipbone and flank. He became prone to the ground and worked to push himself up.

"Stay down, Eren. Stay down. Stay—"

Eren's face cracked against the deck. Blood leaked from a split in his forehead. Phones flung up. Lights beamed out. Camera lenses watched. Mikasa was torn from her knees and knocked aside. She crawled to her feet.

"Eren!"

Flipped onto his back, Eren struggled with the three in a wild tangle of arms and hands, railing one another with sharp, terrible _thwops_ of impact. Outnumbered, Eren took too much damage. Fists and feet beat him, everywhere. Dull bodily thuds. Each impact killed him a little. His thrashes slowed. His fighting deteriorated. He spilled blood.

Panic soaked Mikasa's mind. What should she do? Jump in? Call the police? Ask for help? She looked around. Phone cameras observed everything without any outrage or any concern, just countless glass portals into technologic unmercy and emptiness.

The biggest boy scooped his finger into his mouth and dug out the mound cradled inside his cheek. The curl of his finger was piled with dibbling black tobacco chew. With the free hand, he forced Eren's teeth apart. The other palm clapped over Eren's mouth, force-feeding him the regurgitated spit tobacco. Blood and gritty black juice drooled down Eren's chin. Eren jerked and tried to squirt it out. A girl was saying, _This is fucked up. This is so fucked up. _But nobody did anything. They watched and shook their heads, aiming their phones.

Consciousness faded as their fists and feet connected in blunt thuds of bone and muscle. Eren's slack-muscled body had stopped registering pain. His fighting failed and he lied on his back, his eyes turned up into his head. People around the pool muttered in that monotone repetition, _This is so fucked up_, while their phone lights speared out, recording it all.

Tapping into some last reserve of energy, Eren struggled to turn on his shoulder and get up. They smashed him back down. The largest of the three boys, grabbing Eren's shirt, twisted and wrenched it over his head. Then he reached down and grabbed Eren's pants. Eren was seized by the armpits and yanked in the two opposite directions at once. Eren tried to wrestle off their grips as they wrestled him out of his clothes.

_This is so fucked up._ Heads shook. Nobody tried to stop it. Phones were still filming.

Stripped down to his underwear, Eren was tucked on his side. His forearms flexed, protecting his head and face from their kicks.

Not even two minutes had passed.

Eren was knocked into the pool. Water crashed and rose over the edge, running the deck with a sheet of chlorine. The largest boy bounded in. He seized Eren by the hair. The boy wearing Sperry's snarled: "Go get it, motherfucker." Eren's head was forced under the water and held where an iPhone was sunk at the bottom. Eren thrashed and fought.

"Holy shit— Are they try'na kill him?"

By the grip on his hair, Eren's face was thrust back. His throat arched. He gasped through a dropped open desperate mouth. Then his head was shoved back under. The boy held Eren down, plunged shoulder-deep into the pool. Eren splashed and fought. Water shattered frantically around him.

"Oh, my god. They're gonna kill him. Oh, my god."

People shouted. Cameras aimed. Eren thrashed. Air gurgled to the surface in a white spume. His arms swung and slapped the water. The fountain of breath reduced to an irregular trickle, thinning, bubbles. Pause. Bubbles. Then, altogether, the air stopped rising. Eren's arms went slack. His hair drifted gently. Everybody's cellphones recorded him dying.

"Oh, my god. _Oh, my fucking god!_"

"STOP!" Water spurt up in a massive spray as Reiner Braun charged into the pool. Waves curled off with his hefty sides. The water crashed and gushed from end to end. Reiner grappled the boy and broke his grip from Eren's hair. They wrestled each other by the shoulders. Surging to the surface, Eren exploded free, making awful choking dying gasps. He went to the side of the pool. His neck strained out. His face was purple. He vomited.

Everybody went still. The fighting ceased. Nothing could be heard except for the hideous sound of retching. Flushes of pool water spewed out of Eren's stomach and washed the deck. The people nearby shrunk their toes away. "Ew," they said. They pinched their noses. The three boys, who were no longer deranged with violence, watched as Eren gripped the edge of the pool and vomited. Reiner came up and put a hand on Eren's back.

"You're good, man," he said. "Keep it coming. You're doing good. That's it."

When the water was all out, Eren sobbed for air as if he were lingering in the limbo of drowning to death.

"Breathe. You got it, man. It's all right." Reiner moved his hand back and forth on Eren's shoulder.

Eren tried to raise up on his hands and lift himself from the pool. His arms shook. He buckled. He tried again. They all watched as he pathetically struggled to get himself out of the pool. They felt embarrassed seeing him so sad and pathetic. They wanted him to get out and do it well. They wanted him to stand up and do that well, too. It was embarrassing that he was broken and almost drowned and almost naked; embarrassing that he'd been assaulted, stripped, and strangled; that he'd puked and was now failing to recover and salvage. So simple. So easy. Get out of the pool, Eren Jaeger, the fake wannabe King. So pathetic. He knew it, too. He knew he was fake and pathetic; that's why he rejected the crown. They were all grossly embarrassed of him. It probably would've been less embarrassing if he just went ahead and died.

Mikasa gave Eren her hand. He seized it. The sum of strength she possessed was not enough. With both hands gripping him, Mikasa was dragged forward. Her feet skidded on the wet soapstone tile. She hissed and gripped tighter. He outweighed her by seventy-two pounds. Eren's hand slipped from hers, he'd let go. It struck the deck again and he caught himself. Still in the pool, Reiner boosted Eren by the glute and that gave him what he needed to get his knee over the edge. Eren crawled pathetically onto the deck. Water and blood streamed from him.

Reiner rose from the pool and took Eren's upper arms, hoisting him up. Eren's legs rattled. He hugged himself, shaking all over. Water flicked off his body, shook by the tremors. Then Eren's eyes rolled and his consciousness left and he began to sink. Reiner caught him.

"Hey, hey. None of that, now. Wake up, buddy. Come on." Reiner was powerful and careful and sturdy. He supported Eren against his chest. "Eren?"

Eren's legs rattled back to life again and he put some strength in them. They took a few quaking steps. Then Eren's neck went limp and the concussion swept him under for good. "Eren, no. Hey, _hey—_"

Reiner swung Eren up into his arms. Quickly he trundled off the patio and into the grass, hunched over with the 170 pounds or more of dead-like body matter cradled in his arms, hurrying toward the line of cars parked by the woods before his rapidly dwindling strength could give out. Mikasa scooped up Eren's clothes and ran after them.

When she caught up, she scanned the line of parked vehicles. "Which one's yours?"

"The Jeep."

Mikasa ran ahead. She opened the passenger side door. Reiner hauled Eren inside. The Jeep rocked and huffed on its coils. Reiner manipulated and positioned Eren like a taxidermist. When he turned, the front of Reiner's University of Florida shirt clung to him, transparent, smeared pink with Eren's blood. His breath was labored. His huge lungs stretched his huge chest.

"I'll go get my car," Mikasa said. "You can follow me to Eren's house."

"Got'cha."

# # #

A change of clothes was piled in Mikasa's arms. Down the stairs she treaded while Reiner was loitered, midway, studying the framed photograph of Eren, Armin, and Mikasa hanging on the wall.

"A sorcerer hat, huh? That seems like you," he said. "And Eren looks cute in those Pluto ears. Is that Armin? in the middle?"

Mikasa treaded her feet down the carpeted steps. "Yeah."

"He's ranked first in our class, right? I wonder if he'd agree to tutor me in chemistry."

Mikasa sighed. She was growing impatient. At the bottom of the stairs she turned sharply. Reiner came up short behind her, surprised. "Hey, Reiner. Why'd you get in the middle of all that? You were the only person at that whole party who did anything."

"I was just doing the right thing."

"Nobody else was going to do the right thing. Everybody was just going to let it happen."

"Well, if Ymir hadn't told me what was going on, I wouldn't have done anything either. I was inside."

"Ymir told you?"

"Yeah. It's a good thing she did, too. None of us were even aware. It was weird. I was coming down the stairs and there she was at the bottom, waiting. Like she knew exactly where to find me."

"Reiner," Mikasa said. "What if it'd been somebody else? Would you still have jumped in?"

"It wouldn't have mattered who it was. I could never stand by and do nothing as somebody got hurt."

"So it wasn't because it was Eren?"

Reiner looked into her face. He had a dense brow-bone and the house lights refracting off his irises made his eyes look like two burnished pennies. "I'm sorry. I don't really understand," he said.

"No, I'm sorry. Here I am interrogating you and I haven't even thanked you yet. If you hadn't jumped in, I don't know what would've happened. So, thank you."

Reiner averted his penny-like eyes. "It was nothing."

"You can hang around if you want. I think I'm going to try to make Eren something to eat. I'm not a good cook. But I thought I'd try something simple. The remote's there, if you want to turn on the TV."

"Thanks. I think I'll stick around a while. Want to make sure he's doing okay and everything."

"Okay. I'm going to go check on him now."

Shifting water rang in the master bathroom. In his parents' Jacuzzi bathtub, Eren sat, submerged to the chest. The jets were off. The water was flat and gentle. Eren stared between atoms into an infinity of nothingness. His kneecaps breached the water like two isolated islands. An ice pack sat on the edge of the tub.

"Here's a change of clothes." Mikasa laid them in a stack on the floor. Then she went on her bare feet to the medicine cabinet and searched for an antibiotic cream and painkillers. She took a tube of Neosporin, a bottle of Ibuprofen, a washcloth, and then sat on her knees by the bathtub. She took up the ice pack and placed it to the side of his face. From icing it earlier, the inflammation had deflated, somewhat. A patch of skin was still aggravated with cold.

"Eren, can you hold this here?" she said. Eren didn't move. "Eren?"

His neck turned. He braced the ice pack to his face. The Ibuprofen bottle, she opened and tapped out three tablets. He turned away. She put the tablets on the tub's edge.

"Can you go home, already?" Eren said. "I want you to go home. I want to be alone. I want everybody to leave me alone. I need everybody to leave me the _fuck_ alone." His voice rose. The bathroom's ceramic and granite and tiles resounded harshly. Eren was sick with anger and humiliation and hatred and loneliness. Like a hurt animal, he indiscriminately snarled and snapped, even at those who only wanted to give him kindness.

"I know." Mikasa put the bottle down. "At least let me clean your face. I'll leave right after." Eren's neck turned to her again. He let her put her hands on his face. "Let me know if I'm hurting you."

After dipping the cloth under the faucet, Mikasa began to carefully brush the facial cuts, working away dried bits of blood until his clean skin showed through.

She pressed the wash cloth to his hairline. She kneaded his ears and sponged his jaw. She used her fingertips to dab the Neosporin to his forehead, his cheeks, his lips, and let the anesthetic absorb into his nerves and offer them temporary relief. When she finished, she rose and put away the Neosporin and Ibuprofen and washed her hands and flicked her fingers. Water spattered the sink. She rubbed her palms and wrists on a hand towel. It was embroidered with a cursive J.

"Is there anything I can do for you?" she said.

Eren's eyes closed. His eyes opened. It was a blink in slow motion. He was silent. His face, even after being tended to, was horrible. Frightening to look at. In a patchwork of shiny lumps and purple drooping flesh, it looked like his face were both freezing and melting at the same time.

"Eren," she said. "You asked me to play the piano for your graduation. I've decided that I'll do it. But I only want to play the piano for you. Will that be okay?"

His head turned in slow motion. His eyes were staring between atoms, through nothingness, trying to see her. They came into focus and cleared. He saw her at last. "Stingy," he said. He spoke at a normal speed, but his voice was not smooth. "I know a lot of people who'd like to hear you."

"I don't play music for just anyone," she said. "It's—personal."

"You used to do recitals. I went to one in middle school. At the First Baptist Church. I remember it."

"I know." Mikasa spoke to Eren through her eyes. "Things are different now," she said. "Once your parents get home, I promise I'll leave. But until they walk through that door, I'm going to wait in the living room with Reiner."

"He hasn't left yet either?"

"No. Take that Ibuprofen, okay?"

Mikasa left. She leaned her back on the door until it clicked shut. Her hands were shaky, but she didn't cry. Leaving the master bedroom, she entered the living room. Reiner was on the couch, taking up two of the single-person seat cushions. On the TV, Comedy Central played.

"How's he doing?" Reiner said.

"He's—" The muscles in Mikasa's face jerked. She didn't cry. "Maybe you should try to talk to him. Maybe he'll feel better if you're with him."

"Me? Really?"

"He keeps telling me to go home. He really doesn't want me here."

"He probably doesn't want you seeing him like this. I wouldn't take it personally."

"Can you go check on him, too? Even though he says he wants to be alone, I don't think it's a good idea for him to be by himself." Mikasa went to the kitchen. She rummaged through the cabinets. On one of the shelves was a stored box of premade baking mix. "Do you like pancakes?" she said.

"Who doesn't like pancakes?"

# # #

An electric griddle spit in the kitchen. The smell of food fanned off cast-iron plates. Bubbles rose in the premade pancake batter. The batter's edges firmed and thickened. Mikasa wedged a spatula between the pancake and the griddle plates. She monitored the doneness. Still too raw and pale. For a little longer, she let it cook then she used the spatula to toss it over. She greased the tanned side with butter.

On bulky linebacker footsteps, Reiner pounded into the kitchen.

"You were in there for a while," Mikasa said.

"Yeah. He's doing okay."

"That's good."

She lifted the pancake from the griddle and slid it onto a saucer. The laundry room door opened. Voices sounded down the hall. Mikasa put down the spatula and wiped her hands down her shirt. Around the corner, Eren's parents appeared. Hospital nametags were stuck to their shirts. They hadn't been expecting guests.

"Mrs. Jaeger," Mikasa said. She moved around the bar counter, closer to them. "Something happened at the Blackwoods'. Something bad."

"What happened?"

"Eren—he—there was a fight—and he— he got hurt. He—" Reality finally struck down and contacted her soul like a lightning bolt. There hadn't been time to process and absorb. Now it hammered and soaked her marrow. Mikasa's eyes sprayed. "Oh, god. I'm so sorry. I was right there with him." She covered her mouth in retrospective horror. "Everything happened so fast. I didn't know what to do." She screwed her eyelids together and pinched off her tear ducts. "I'm so sorry. I panicked and froze up. I couldn't move. I couldn't do anything. I'm so sorry—"

"Mikasa, Mikasa. What are you talking about?" Mrs. Jaeger gathered Mikasa up in her arms.

"Eren got jumped," Reiner said. "They whaled on him pretty bad."

"What? Who?"

"Where is he?" Grisha said.

"Soaking in the bath," Reiner said. "He's dang solid. They got him decent, but he's like an ox. I don't know who they were. The big guy might be a baseball player. I don't know anybody that dips except the baseball team."

Grisha left toward the master bedroom. Carla Jaeger held Mikasa and told her everything was going to be okay.

"It's all right. It's over now. You brought him back home. Everything's okay now." She released Mikasa and clasped her hands. She squeezed Mikasa's fingers. Then she let go and went after Grisha to the master bedroom.

In a shaky stupor, Mikasa returned to the kitchen and Reiner followed. He stood next to her as she continued making pancakes. Her hands moved slower. Everything about her was slower.

"You shouldn't feel bad," said Reiner. "They would've hurt you too and you have no padding on those bones. Eren's at least got a good build."

Another helping of pancake batter spread the griddle. Mikasa stared at it. She waited.

"I don't know why I'm even making these," she said. "He won't want them. He probably can't even eat them right now. I want to make things better. But I don't know what I'm doing." She meant more than just the pancakes.

"Well, I'll take them. I'm starving." Taking up a plate from the cabinet, Reiner paved the ceramic face with a load of pancakes. He poised maple syrup over them. He upended the bottle. A thick lacquer smothered the buttery stack.

After some time, Mr. and Mrs. Jaeger came out of the master bedroom. Eren was between them, wearing the change of clothes Mikasa took to him. He looked awfully damaged.

"It smells good in here," Grisha said.

Mikasa cringed. "It's just your pancake mix. It's nothing special."

"For being nothing special, they're the best late-night pancakes I've ever had." Reiner overloaded his fork and dumped an impossible heap into his mouth. His whole jawline masticated. He swallowed. His face took in food then sucked it away into the vacuum-sack of his stomach, which was walless, bottomless, and inexhaustible.

"Eren's pretty swollen," Mikasa said. "You can save them for the morning." She turned off the griddle. "Or you can throw them out. It doesn't matter." The double cast iron plates she removed from the griddle and then she collected the mixing bowl and whisk and dirty utensils and, filing them into the kitchen sink, she opened the faucet handle. Leftover pancake batter watered down and lifted from its cling.

"We'll get those, Mikasa," said Carla Jaeger. She held Eren on her arm and remained in unbroken physical contact with him. "Don't worry about them."

"No, it's okay," said Mikasa. "I'll do it." A milky bowlful of water and pancake batter grumbled down the disposal.

Grisha moved beside Mikasa. He closed the faucet. "Thank you, Mikasa. But we'll handle it." He squeezed her shoulder. Eren inherited his height from his father. But Eren had assimilated it into his DNA and maximized it and now he stood taller and wider than the original.

"Your parents are probably worried to death about you," said Grisha. "It's two AM. Why don't I take you home? We can talk through everything tomorrow and figure out the best way to settle this situation, together. But for now, you kids need to settle down and get some rest. Everything will be taken care of, all right? Don't you worry."

There was a twinge in Mikasa's ducts. She snapped her eyes away, closing off the valves as if she were slamming shut a window. "You don't need to drive me, Mr. Jaeger." She toweled her hands dry and went to the front door. Her legs were wobbly as she crammed her feet into her shoes. By the door, a pair of Eren's Nike high tops were toppled over.

Insects swarmed the floodlights when they flared on. Mikasa hugged herself and walked down the stepping stones pathway. Grisha accompanied her to her car. His hand pressed a comfort on her shoulder. Mikasa turned back to the red brick house. In front of the opened red door, three outlines stood on the porch.

"Eren," Mikasa said. "Can you call me in the morning to let me know how you're doing?"

"Yes, he'll do that." Mrs. Jaeger answered for him. She had him jammed against her right side, brushing the overgrown hair by his ear with her gentle maternal hands. Eren towered over her. In a mother's subjective view, no matter how big they grew, their children would always be that. Her baby boy, forever. A precious baby boy whom she would lay down her own life for. The chambers of her heart pumped, not simply blood alone, but a mother's endless inimitable love for her one and only child.

It was a beautiful thing. It was an unbearable thing.

The mother would be the one to find him.

* * *

a/n: i wrote this fight over a year ago and it was sitting in my computer all that time. It's based off a real life event that happened when I was in high school, but it was 10x worse and there was a death

I know this chapter was lengthy, but it's only 1 reality. there's more to go... this story is really really difficult to write, btw, just the logistics of it is making me want to rip my hair out. i hope it's easier to read than it is to write.

Thank you for the reviews that were left last chapter. It really does give me an incredible feeling of happiness.

Thank you kira31 and thefinishedman for mentioning Reiner last time :) that made me happy.


	8. The After-Party (in another time)

a/n: sorry it took 2 weeks to update, i haven't been home, but since it took longer to write, i feel anxious to go ahead and post. sorry for bad quality

10.9k words

thank you for reading and thank you for the couple of reviews :) it always feels nice

* * *

The After-Party (in another time)

Partyers had taken over a second-floor guest bedroom. A blunt was passed around in the dark. One boy with bloodshot eyes threw a tennis ball against the wall. When it bounced back, he pawed at it, missing. It careened, a yellow highlight, toward the doorway. Just as Reiner Braun was about to pass the guest bedroom, his hand shot out, caught the ball, released, tossing the ball up, swooping it into the opposite hand. From there, Reiner returned the ball with a backward toss. It went up, over his shoulder, dropping into a pair of cupped palms, waiting.

The circle of people sitting on the guest bed oozed droopy bloodshot stares of amazement on the ball. The boy who caught the ball found the ball in his palms, and was ecstatic to discover it there for the first time, laughing at how wonderful and yellow it was. His hair was a crazy oily muss.

"Damn, son. That was clean."

"Those disgusting reflexes, bro."

"Nah," Reiner said. "That luck's disgusting."

They laughed. But it wasn't untrue. Luck was arbitrary. And it was only arbitrary that Reiner returned the ball perfectly, which sometimes he did and other times he didn't do. Regardless of how he walked, how the ball rebounded, regardless at which moment he stepped into frame or at what degree his hand was angled and extended, if he was lucky, the ball was returned. It he wasn't, it fell. Reiner was not quite aware of this fact. He merely existed on the continuum and did as fate would have him do, which was to climb the stairs to the second floor, pass the guest bedroom, either catch or drop a tennis ball, and then find an unoccupied bathroom where he would unload his bladder.

After checking his image in the vanity, Reiner lumbered his linebacker heft out the door. He passed the guest bedroom again. In a rhythm, the yellow tennis ball was bounced. It hit the floor, the wall, was caught and released, hit the floor, the wall, was caught and released, hit the floor . . .

Reiner reached the top of the grand staircase. He froze, panicked, and clapped his pockets. He looked down, watching his hands slap the front pockets, in wide-palmed wallops. Then he slapped the back pockets. In the right back pocket, he found his phone. He calmed. Luckily, Reiner noticed, his fly was down. He pinched the zipper and tugged.

"Nice."

At the bottom of the staircase, Ymir was leaned against the wall, that condescending face uplifted, sneering, seeing it all. Trotting down the steps with an unexpected lightness, Reiner went to move past her. Ymir came off the wall and cast her shadow on him.

"Eren's outside getting whooped as we speak," she said.

"What?"

"Three against one. Bad odds. Ever heard of bystander apathy?"

"What?"

"Get yo' big behind out there, fool. Best hurry. He can't hold his breath forever." There was a delay between the moment Ymir stopped speaking and the moment Reiner began to process what was said. "_Run_, I said."

Reiner ran.

When he pounded out the double glass doors, people were swarmed around the pool, hemming it in with a line of bodies, that widened by layers each second as more people joined. Beyond the line of onlookers, water shot up like mercurial rain. Phones were thrust out. Shouts rose as the sounds of beaten water fell.

"Oh, my god. _Oh, my fucking god_—"

"STOP!" Reiner tore through the wall of people. His bare feet crashed down the pool steps. He stopped short. A wake rolled down the length of the pool and over Eren, who was bent at the chest, gripping the stalk of a neck between his shoulder and side. A head fought, held, under the water.

"He's gonna kill him!"

The boy jerked frantically against Eren. Eren gripped him down, steadily compressing the neck and vertebrae under his arm. Life was beginning to leave. The boy wriggled in a dying panic. Eren's naked shoulder and bicep squeezed in conjunction. Phones recorded. Seconds passed on time stamps.

"Eren, stop," Reiner said calmly. "Let him go, Eren. You have to let him go." Eren didn't let him go. Blood spilled down his eyebrow, down his lips, into his gnashed pink teeth. His muscles shivered with exertion, braced against the deteriorating jerky struggle. Breath bubbled to the surface under Eren's eyes. Eren watched it reduce and weaken and then shortly fail.

"LET HIM GO." Reiner grappled Eren. The chokehold broke. Exploding out of the water, the boy clung to the side of the pool. His gut muscles contracted. He hosed the deck with pool water and stomach juice.

A couple girls groaned. They plugged their noses.

Before Reiner could take another step, Eren shoved his face in Reiner's face. Eren bared his pink-stained teeth, snarling, head to head, at Reiner, his muscles still shivering, breathing in hot rattling pants, as everything screamed and shook inside him, and began to fall apart. His nostrils opened, red. A red clump of blood seeped out. Reiner showed the surrender of his palms.

"I'm just trying to help you."

"I don't need your fucking help." Eren's face was warped as if somebody had ripped it off, wrung it like a wet rag, and slapped it back on. He spun away. His eyes flew from phone to phone to phone to phone. There was no end, no beginning, only walls, layers deep, of an unblinking technologic nightmare.

Phone cameras appropriated, stripping everything of everything.

With each phone that his eyes circled to, Eren's heart admitted a new gush of blood. One, two, three—fifty phones, five hundred phones—the number didn't matter. Pounds on pounds of blood rattled Eren's body until he could do nothing but convulse and well up and then, finally, scream—

"GET YOUR FUCKING PHONES OUT OF MY FUCKING FACE!" It was an overwhelmed, tortured, hateful sound, hardly a voice at all. Eren flung himself at the closest aimed phone. Water roared and smashed over the people on the deck. Before he could seize it, Mikasa put herself between him and the phone.

"Forget these people, Eren," she said. "Let's go home, _please_."

His face was still like a wrung rag, but now it twisted the opposite direction and broke a little. Then his face sealed into a mask of steamed iron. He began to march toward the stairs, by steamed iron automation. His legs crashed and his knees came up out the water, and crashed and crashed. Everybody watched him climb the steps, knees crashing, naked to his underwear.

A boy standing close by muttered to the person next to him. A video played on his phone. "You see that shit? This mothafucka played dead and when the dude start sweatin', thinking he killed him, this man pop his head out the water like, 'surprise, bitch.'"

The boy's hand was struck. His fingers broke open, the phone knocked loose. It dropped. It shattered. Water trickled on it from Eren, who stood over, his shoulders shrugged up and stiff, his eyes like the blind motionless featureless eyes of a statue. "I said get your fucking phone out of my face."

Eren's feet hammered off the outdoor patio and then beat down grass. A line of empty cars waited in the dark. There was a following rise of _ooooh's _and a malicious whisper of laughing the further Eren lapsed into shadow. It rose like a wind, their laughter, as he went away. Videos were uploaded. Upload complete. Video posted. Ha-ha-ha!

Mikasa ran after Eren.

When he got to his car, Eren stopped. He didn't get in, just put his hands on the roof of his car, gripping it, everything tensed up, as if he were expecting another blow from out of nowhere. The trunk of his body flared and fell, over again. It was a kind of hyperventilation. In the forefront of Eren's mind, there were faces and cameras, staring at him, him seeing the faces and cameras even when he shut his eyes. It was wrong. The faces were so sick and wrong. He dry heaved.

"Eren," Mikasa said.

"They're crazy. They're all crazy. Fuck them. Fuck all of them. These disgusting Lake Valley people. Every last one of them is a psycho _sadistic_ piece of shit." He sputtered and reduced into a parroting repetition because language could never communicate the ineffable wrong. "How could they do that? how could anyone in the whole world do that?"

His back twitched and shivered as though pins and needles stabbed each inch of his skin. Mikasa flung her arms around him.

"I don't know," she said.

The cold and the wet bled into her clothes. Mikasa held him: Everything would be okay. She closed her eyes: Everything would be okay . . .

Pain shot through her ear. Mikasa winced.

Away from the house it was pitch dark. They could not hear the laughing or the talking. Just the pine forest and undisturbed nature. Eren's breath and heartbeat ran steady as the fight and violence folded back under his consciousness to spring out another day.

Then Eren took her wrists, opening her arms from around his waist, and turned around so they were face to face. The anger showed its true identity. Under all that superficial topcoat, anger wasn't anger, hate wasn't hate. As if he were only strings and nothingness, everything collapsed on Mikasa, and she caught a puddle of him, holding his neck in her arms, stretched onto her toes.

Eren's hands slid down, over her shorts, to the backs of her thighs. In a movement, he hoisted her feet off the ground, and she did as he wanted, wrapping him up in her arms and legs, covering him with herself. It was that paradoxical feeling of wanting to be cracked in two by somebody's embrace. They gripped each other, pulse to pulse. She felt him stretching when he breathed, stretching her until her chest was compacted tight and painful.

After a moment, Eren raised his head from her shoulder. He slackened. He set Mikasa on her feet again. Turning, Mikasa saw Reiner Braun standing in front of them, Eren's clothes bundled in his arms.

"Sorry," Reiner said, abashed. "These were left behind."

"Shoulda just left 'em." Eren wiped his bloody nose and snorted in air through the right nostril, the left, testing the airways. He checked his hand for scab debris. Not once did he look at Reiner.

Mikasa's shoes whispered in grass and pine needles. She spread her arms. Reiner shifted the clothes pile over. "Do you want to come with us?" she said. "Eren has this old Nintendo sixty-four we used to play. You should come with us so we can beat your butt at Mario Kart."

# # #

No other vehicles sat in the Jaeger driveway when Mikasa and Reiner pulled in. The house was quiet and dark. They went in, turned on the lights. Eren limped to the master shower as the stress-induced anesthesia faded, and the injuries began to ding all his nerve receptors like tiny shrill alarm bells. Mikasa went to the living room and unpacked the Nintendo 64 from storage. She set it up. She plugged it in.

"Eren's kind of a scary dude," Reiner said. "I didn't know if he was going to let go of that guy. There was nothing in his face, you know? It was like he was on autopilot."

_(You never know what a person's capable of till they do it. _somewhere across space and time, Mikasa was scribbling in a notebook, remembering, listening to the voices whisper)

Mikasa kneaded her earlobe. She said, "Eren was the victim. If you'd been hurt and humiliated in front of all those people, what would you have done, Reiner?"

She punched the power button. A red light glowed on. She handed Reiner a gray controller and took a red one for herself.

"I've never seen Eren act so scary before." She changed the television input settings. "But I can't blame him for losing it like that. Can you?"

The After-Party (in another time)

Eren didn't let go of his lip for a suspect amount of time.

"I'm not an idiot," Mikasa said again and rolled her eyes. "Stop worrying about me."

"I'm not, not gonna worry."

Mikasa lifted the red solo cup. Eren's eyes tracked it. He watched her slowly sip. She lowered her hand with the track of his eyes still on the cup.

"I want to show you something," Eren said. He looked at her face now

"What is it?"

"You'll see."

Through the house, through swarms, through all the knocking and bumping shoulders, Eren kept close to Mikasa, laying down a path for them, to a grand staircase. The house's glass elevator glided up a golden flue, carrying a small group of people to the roof. Mikasa's eyes followed them, her chin lifting, until it stopped and she saw, from beneath, feet puttering off the glass bottom.

"That's insane."

"Yeah. Just wait."

They turned down an empty hall, just four walls and a dead-end. Eren stopped in front of a closed door. He took a crystal knob, turned, pushed. It opened onto a large room with nothing in it except, in the center, supported by four imposing legs, a shining black concert grand piano. All on their own, the keys fell in a waterfall of sound. Music resounded in the great wooden cavity as if a ghost musician were playing it.

"It has a self-playing feature," Eren said. "But we can shut it off. I don't think any of the Blackwoods actually know how to play."

They went to it. Where the lid was propped open, inside the body were the piano's exposed guts and workings. Strings were struck and resonated in sweet rich tones. Eren felt the piano's underside. A click. The strings ceased. The keys went to plane, no longer playing themselves. Eren sat down on the bench. He patted the space next to him.

"Play," he said. "When will you ever get the chance to play a hundred-thousand-dollar piano again?"

"A hundred-thousand dollars?" Mikasa felt queasy.

"And then some. Sit down."

They put their drinks of the floor and Mikasa sat. Eren watched her from the left half of his face. He encouraged her with a look. Mikasa fanned her fingers. The pads sank against cool porcelain. She retracted.

"I can't."

"You can."

When her fingers contacted again, her eyes dampened as something invisible and wounding punched into her chest and out the other side, leaving a perfect invisible emptiness.

"What's wrong?" Eren said. "I thought you'd like it."

"I do like it. It's the most beautiful piano I've ever seen; that I'll ever see."

Eren didn't know it, but Mikasa's hands had been dead for years. Then they'd been brought back to life, but they'd been resurrected only halfway, with half of everything gone, and Mikasa could only ever mourn the half that would never return, grieving the loss of the half-life each time her hands set on the keys, reminding her of the wholeness she once had. It had left so quietly that she couldn't feel the loss as it was happening. Only after it was gone did she realize something had been dying. Now within her hands, she was carrying something gone and dead.

"Play," Eren said. "Just try."

Mikasa tried.

The keys were struck by the dead within her hands. The hammers came down on the strings and vibrations shook out sounds, lifting them out of the cavity, resonating them through the piano's wood and through the room. She played. She played and felt the dead within her hands, and missed all the times she had played the black-and-white keys so beautifully, mourning what had been lost. She played, striking wrong keys, each time losing her breath like a physical blow. With her half-life fingers, her music could only ever be half-beautiful, half-hideous. Mikasa didn't know it, but the mistakes, Eren didn't hear. Many people didn't hear wrong and misplayed notes; they heard only the sound of music. Mikasa played and, behind her eyelids, there was water and hurt, and the instrument swelled with exquisite loneliness and deprivation.

"It's so sad," Eren said.

"I'm just playing whatever comes to mind," Mikasa said. "It's not anything."

"It's sad, Mikasa."

Mikasa's hands went still. "Sorry." Her fingers drooped off the keys.

"No, I didn't mean for you to stop. It's just—that's the music coming from your mind? That's what your mind sounds like?"

"I don't know."

Eren moved over. He sat right up against her. "Keep going."

Her hands remained in her lap. "How about we play a duet?"

"A duet? That's when two people play at the same time. Right?"

"Yes. Put your hands on the keys. Like this."

Mikasa demonstrated. Eren copied. Little by little, Mikasa taught Eren the tune and he picked it out key by key, then measure by measure. Then, after some practice and a couple repeats, he fluently played the melody without having to think much about what he was doing.

"Now," Mikasa said, "I'm going to play with you. Here's the tempo." She snapped her fingers.

His playing matched to the tempo. Then Mikasa stopped snapping and put her fingers on the keys and merged her accompaniment with his tune. The piano became alive with dual sympathetic vibrations. Their hands moved together and pounced on the porcelain in staccato as they played through the melody twice.

"Last time," Mikasa said. For the last time, they swept through the melody and played their final chords. Mikasa held the foot pedal and the notes sang and held and the grand piano was full of sweet resonation. She lifted her foot. The sweet resonation fell. They sat in the stillness and the quiet.

"Your first duet," Mikasa said. "How's it feel to be an official pianist?"

"Hah." Eren leaned back on his hands. Quietly, he savored the music they made together, holding it in himself. "That song was happy."

"It was the beginning of the song _Chopsticks_ and it's in C major." Mikasa played the C major scale and harmonizing chords. "I guess my brainwaves are tuned to A minor." She played the A minor scale and harmonizing chords.

"Huh. That's interesting." He watched her again from the side of his face. "Have you thought about what I asked? Would you play for my graduation?"

"If I do, I only want you to hear it."

"Why just me?"

"I never thought about my music as being anything more than an ability to press keys and interpret sheet music. Anybody can do that. Now my piano-playing feels personal. It feels . . . " The thought wouldn't translate into spoken words. She let it void and fade. "I know it sounds stupid."

"No, it doesn't," Eren said. "You don't sound stupid."

His eyes searched her face and then they deepened, and she could feel herself being divided into parts: eyes, hair, cheeks, lips, all the individual parts floating by themselves in a sterile solution as he gauged each one. Then his black pupils pulled her together and held her whole.

"Your hair's getting long." Eren touched her hair. Mikasa went very still and careful, as if she were a breakable sheet of china. He pushed pieces behind her ear and followed them in his fingers down to her shoulder.

"Yeah. I don't like it. I need to get it cut." Mikasa turned her neck. Eren was already looking at her, twisted at the chest, his black pupils still holding her together. All over, Mikasa became softened like wax and her inner wrist jumped with a hard, startling pump of life.

"What the fuck." The two jerked around on the piano bench. Noralis filled the doorway, her eyes white, her arms rigid at her sides, hands balled up. Her head began to rock like it was on a coil spring, nodding crazily. "A'ight. I see how it is. Ditch me so y'all can stab me in the back. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck both a y'all." It was a betrayed voice that resonated in Mikasa like the piano's wood cavity. Noralis was gone.

"Huh? What? Nora!" There was confusion, bafflement. Then Eren's tone changed as he understood, now at a loss of what to do, trying to scrabble himself together. "Noralis! Wait—" He snapped to Mikasa. "Did she really think—? That we were—? I wasn't, I was just—" He shoved off the bench. A thousand dollars or so screeched against wood flooring. The last thing Mikasa saw was Eren's hands swinging back behind him as he chased after her.

On the outdoor patio, Eren caught up to Noralis. Before he could get a word out, she whirled violently around. She didn't scream at him yet, just stabbed him in the chest with her finger.

"You like her," she said. "You always liked her more than me."

"We been over this, Noralis. A million times. There's nothing. That was nothing. You saw nothing. You're blowing up over nothing like you always do. Stop trippin'."

"You trippin'. You're always trippin'!" Now she screamed at him, and then took her fists and banged them on his chest. She started to cuss at him in Spanish. "I'm not crazy. You're crazy. You try to make _me_ crazy!"

"Stop hitting me. Stop hitting me. Stop _hitting_ me."

(_shit_, said a group of boys nearby, aiming their phones; _she whoopin' 'im. What he do?_ They laughed and recorded and shared. _Got 'im_. _Ha ha ha ha ha—_)

Eren caught her wrists. Noralis fought him, cussing at him the whole time. Her knee jerked up. Eren shoved his hands down protectively. For an instant, he was fearful and groaned in the anticipation of pain, feeling a kind of phantom agony before she could even jab him with her knee. Then her foot went back down and she didn't kick him. Her wrists slipped free. She banged her fists on his chest again, harder, punching the air out of him.

She hit him. She hit him because her brain deceived her, it tricked her and plagued her with paranoia and jealousy and violence and self-sabotage; and she hated what she did; and she hated how she was; and she hated who she was; and her past was ugly and her future was ugly, and she hit him because she couldn't hit herself. Eren seized her wrists again.

"Hit me back," she said, crying. "Hit me back, I dare you."

Gripping her arms in a dead vise, Eren yanked, once, hard. "Stop it. _Stop_. I'm not gonna hit you." The balls of her shoulders jerked in their sockets. Her hair scattered. Above her wrists, her hands went limp.

(The boys watched with serious faces now, it was not funny anymore, and they whispered, letting each other know they were going to rise together and whip the dude if he laid a finger on that crazy bitch 'cause you don't hit girls, you never do that, bitches are insane, and that's just how it is.)

Eren and Noralis both breathed hard, both their chests going, glaring terribly at one another. Then Noralis's eyes sheened over.

"I can't be like her," Noralis said. "I can never be like her."

"Noralis. You're _mi amor_. You." He swayed her forearms. Her hands were folded over on her wrists like droopy flags and swayed, limp.

"You lie. You always lie. You think I'm disgusting."

"I never thought that."

"You lie," she cried.

"I'm not lying. I never lie to you." He put her hands on his chest, tenderly now, covering them with his palms. They felt his chest together where it still radiated with her punches.

Her face fell in. "It's me," she said. "_I _think I'm disgusting." Tears rolled over her eyelids and dripped and scattered trails on her cheeks. "I been lying to you, _papi. _You're gone hate me forever."

# # #

Inside the house now, Eren and Mikasa were in the kitchen, with the handles of bizarre liquor bottles, stabbing up at the ceiling like the pipes on a Gothic organ. Eren slugged down Crown Royal. He shuddered. "How did things get so messed up?" he said to no one, wondering at his life choices. His eyes were clouded over. He was perspiring. His thoughts scrambled in every direction at one time and disjointed him. "Loyalty is something I don't bend on. Maybe it's old-fashioned or some weird puritan shit. But that's where I stand, and I made her aware of my position at the beginning. I said, 'Loyalty's my be-all, end-all.' That's what I said."

"I'm sorry," said Mikasa.

Eren poured another shot and threw it back. Mikasa had stopped counting how many. "I can't blame her for everything. It was both of us. This has been coming for a while." Alcohol thickened and slowed his thoughts like jelly. He screwed the cap back on.

They went outside. Weight leaned sluggishly into Eren's hips and he swayed into each step. He slowed, stopping by the wrought iron patio tables. He forgot that he was going somewhere. Mikasa, two strides ahead, turned.

"How about we go to Jean's house? It sounded like fun, didn't it?" She reached out an opened hand. "When's the last time we've been to Jean's house, anyway? He has that game room with that arcade cabinet." She persuaded him. "With _Galaga_?"

"Yeah," Eren said. He looked at her open hand.

"Let's leave this stupid party," Mikasa went on. "These people aren't your friends. We don't belong here."

"Yeah," Eren said. He watched himself reach his hand into hers. Then he watched her fingers close. Then Mikasa led him away from the glass house that speared light almost all the way to the pine forest. Their shadows fell in front of them. They followed their shadows, hand in hand. Eren sauntered sluggishly behind by a pace and a half.

"Jaeger, where you going?" Boys gathered at the ping-pong table called out to him. "Come on, man," they said. "Fuck with us."

"Nah. I'm 'bout to dip." Eren's feet scuffed to a standstill on the soapstone patio. His shadow stopped too. Their linked hands made a knot between them.

"Pussy," they said. "Bitch," they said. "Little pussy-ass bitch." They hooted at Eren's expense, their eyes shooting him from behind. Eren's lips pulled back. His teeth came out in an odd vicious grin. His eyes got an odd vicious glint to them.

"Eren," Mikasa said.

His fingers came open. Their knotted hands broke. He turned his back. The shadow followed Eren now, back into the light.

"I thought we were going to Jean's." Mikasa spoke to his back as it moved away, relapsing toward the glass Blackwood house.

"We will. Just one short game. That's all."

"Eren."

"You can go ahead. I'll meet up later."

When Eren made it to the ping-pong table, the boys hollered and celebrated and happily took him in, smacking him on the back and clutching his traps, proud of him for choosing them over being a pussy, a little bitch, and so on.

# # #

A few hours later, in the living room, bodies were sprawled, loose-limbed, with heated oily faces. Some girls were draped on boys. Some girls were draped on girls. Some boys were draped on boys. Everybody was pleasantly slack and heavy from the annihilation of marijuana. Behind their faces, a haze of stupid amusement fixed their mouths in stupid lazy smiles. Everything was stupid and great.

"Ay, somebody get this asshole. He's killin' the vibe."

They were talking about Eren.

"Whose man this is?" said a girl. "Get him the fuck outta here."

Reiner took Eren by the hot, slack arm and lifted. "Hey, bud. Let's get you up."

"Stop fucking talking to me." The moment his bones went heavy and the high kicked in, Eren had been telling everybody to stop fucking talking to him. There was no stupid smile on his face. Nothing was stupid or great. Everything was imaginary and infuriating, and he sat, glaring at nothing, wet-eyed and shivering with anger rumination. _Chill, man,_ he'd been told. _Just chill_.

Reiner put a shoulder of support under Eren's arm, marshaling him across the living room, around sprawled annihilated bodies, to the double glass doors. Eren made one heavy leg step forward. Then the other. Right. Left. Carrying them like molasses-filled bags. One, then the other. His muscles were syrup.

"Stop fucking talking to me," Eren said.

Nobody was talking to him. His brain was tricking him.

"Get him the fuck outta here," a slurry of voices demanded.

"Yeah, yeah," Reiner mumbled. "That's what I'm doing."

"Fuck that asshole."

"I get it. All right? I'm taking him."

They made it outside and Eren was astonished by the night, gazing, open-mouthed, at the dark green sky. A breeze hit them with a crispness that sobered Reiner up and cooled Eren's fevered face. Rising out of a wrought iron chair, Mikasa joined them and Eren stared, amazed, as she lifted his arm and put it around her shoulders. They began to walk in a line. Eren was amazed by his own feet as they conveyed him across the patio. His eyes touched everything with pure amazement and wonder.

"He's stoned," Mikasa said.

"No kidding," Reiner said.

"I wish he wouldn't do things like this."

"He had fun."

"This is what fun looks like?"

"You don't think that looks fun?"

"You know what looks fun? That waterslide." Mikasa pointed. A motorized stream of water poured down a spiral and folded into the pool where flapping bodies were spat out, laughing. Mikasa was a child again, wanting to spill around and around, down and down. "I wish I could've gone on it at least once."

"Go right now."

"My clothes."

"So? They'll dry. Are you ever going to get another chance? I got Eren."

It was all the encouragement she needed. Mikasa started toward the pool.

"Wait, where's she going?" Eren's head came up. His face was like a face splashed suddenly by ice-water. "No, no, no, don't go in that pool. Mikasa, come back."

"She's fine, Eren."

"No, she's not! The government planted flesh-eating bacteria in all the pools. Come back!"

"It'll be okay, Eren. There's no flesh-eating bacteria in the pool."

"Let go of me, you lying Nazi shit. You want us all dead. Mikasa! Come back! Please!"

The slide and its motored fall of water was moved in retrograde as Mikasa walked slowly back. She looked Eren in the eyes. He was a chemical cocktail and totally deluded. She rubbed his arms and tried to lull his boiled brain. "It's okay, Eren. Don't worry."

"No, no, no. It's not okay. It's not. Don't go in that pool. The government wants us all dead. I saw your body twisted up and the bones torn out your skin. Please, don't go in there." He wrenched at his hair. "Oh, god. Your bones."

"My bones? They're fine. Look."

He wrenched fiercely at his hair, snapping it from the roots. Mikasa seized his wrists. His hair was snapping away. "No—the skin's too tight—your bones are about to pop out. _Mikasa—_"

"They're not going to pop out, Eren. It's okay. Stop pulling your hair. Go easy. Go _easy_." Mikasa searched his glassy full-moon pupils. She found nothing but clouds and a panicky haze. "This isn't normal."

"He called me a Nazi."

"He's having a break from reality." Like a gust of wind, Ymir came over to them from seemingly nowhere and nothing. "His wiring don't interact well with high doses of THC. He knew that but did what he did anyway. This happens 'cause you got underlying shit. Cannabis don't make people mental."

"How do we sober him up?"

"He's just gon' have to sleep it off."

Supporting and guiding Eren, him watching his own two feet like they weren't his own two feet, they moved systematically to Reiner's Jeep, down the incline, toward the edge of the pine forest. The vehicle unlocked. The headlights blinked. They rolled Eren out of their arms and compacted him into the backseat. He sat obediently like a child and, tomorrow, wouldn't remember anything about his break from reality.

Ymir handed Eren a water bottle. "Take this." Then from her back pocket, she got out an unlabeled pill bottle and rapped out a mysterious tablet. She cracked it in half and administered the half to Eren. "Should put you to sleep. Open up."

"You're always sitting on the fence," he said.

"Hm?"

"You're always waiting by the fence. That night, after kickball, you was there."

"You messed up, boy. Open yo' mouth."

Water carried the half-tablet down and it dispersed and suffused his bloodstream and soon the chemical for sleep was released, inundating the chemical cocktail, taking control of it. Eren lied back against the seat, feeling sleep percolate his nervous system. "Stay away from the pool," he warned Ymir, gravely. "The government planted flesh-eating bacteria in it."

The After-Party (in another time)

"Dance with me, string-bean."

Noralis whipped her hair over her shoulder, watching where she and Mikasa contacted. Then she turned, dropped down on her heels, twisting her body like a screw. Her hands caressed up her sides in presentation, her posture crouched on the soles of her feet. Then her throat arched back. She leered up at Mikasa through dark playful eyes and, never looking away, tilted onto her knees. She began to crawl up Mikasa's legs, lightly impressing her nails on Mikasa's quads.

"Oh, Jesus." Eren put a hand on his head, feeling at his secondhand shame and embarrassment. "I'm sorry. She's had a few drinks. Nora, get up. You're making Mikasa uncomfortable."

Still on her knees, Noralis gazed up at Mikasa prettily. "You're uncomfortable? You just don't got a good enough drink. _Papi_, get her a good drink. A good good drink." Noralis gestured at Mikasa's hand, at the undrunk bottle of beer. "Girl, we fixin' to get turnt. Aye-ee." Her shoulders rocked playfully.

Eren came off the couch. "Just push her off," he said to Mikasa. "She'll get the message. She gets like this when she's drinking." Eren didn't say this, but Noralis also tended to use Spanglish a bit more while drinking.

Mikasa looked down at Noralis, who was still kneeled, gazing up at Mikasa prettily, with her pretty eyelashes lifted up, for the first time using her special magic on Mikasa and her special glitter. Feeling awkward and alien, Mikasa blushed.

"Knock it off, Noralis," Eren said. "Mikasa just got here. Let her chill for a second." He went away and was absorbed into a bumping mob.

Once he was gone, Noralis dumped herself onto the white leather couch. "Sit with me," she said. Mikasa did. Noralis crossed her legs and stretched her arm over the backrest. Her fingers sank exquisitely into Mikasa's hair. The buzz of gentle hair-petting had a pleasurable soporific effect. Mikasa lapsed into a drowse.

"You never had a boyfriend, _niña_? That's what Eren says." She stroked Mikasa's hair gently. Mikasa's vision dipped into low lighting.

"No." Mikasa shivered. Her spine weakened.

"_¿Por qué?_"

"I'm not interested."

"You never kissed no one, neither?"

"No."

"You want to learn how?" Noralis's fingers came out of Mikasa's hair. The drowse switched off. The lights beamed back on. Mikasa's spine was back. "I can teach you. Turn and face me."

"No, thanks."

"Are you waiting for _tu papi_?"

Mikasa didn't answer. She stared at the white floor, holding the beer bottle, having forgotten about it. Then she recalled it and brought it to her mouth and soothed her nerves with alcohol.

"Don't you want to learn now so you won't screw it up when it matters? Look at me. I can show you. Don't be nervous." Noralis took Mikasa's shoulders.

Mikasa drew her feet up onto the couch and turned. She packed her legs under her. Noralis smiled. "Close your eyes." Mikasa did. The world went away. Noralis's bracelets fell in a series of clangs as she framed Mikasa's face with her wrists. Bubbly perfume diffused their breathing air. For a moment, Noralis held her lips against Mikasa's face.

"Kiss back, _niña_," she said. Then she used her wrists to pull Mikasa back in. Their mouths came together. This time, Mikasa reciprocated. "Yes," Noralis whispered. Mikasa held very straight. Her fingers gripped the beer bottle tightly, her knuckles white like plastic. There was a sting. Mikasa flinched. She patted her lip in surprise.

"Sorry," said Noralis. "I bite sometimes. I will try not to. _Una vez más_." Noralis took Mikasa's face and inhaled, and brought her closer. "Eren respects you a lot. He says you're too good for anybody. _Pero no sé_, _niña_. I think everybody's got a little bit of nasty in 'em, _incluso tú_."

"I told you to knock it off, Nora." Eren stood over them, carrying a drink in each hand. "I leave for two seconds and this is what you do. Unbelievable." He shoved a can in Noralis's hand. A red solo cup went to Mikasa. He took the beer bottle from her and drank the rest.

"We was just playing, _papi_."

"Mikasa doesn't play."

"I think she does. _Un poco_."

"She doesn't."

"Tell him, Mikasa." Noralis bent her face close, with her wide brown eyes like fire. "We was just playing." Then she clutched Mikasa's chest like a doorknob and jiggled. Mikasa clasped her arms, crosswise. "Scoo-oop," Noralis lilted, and laughed. "Little itty bitty titty."

When she looked at Mikasa again, Noralis was stunned to see pits of blood seeping under Mikasa's cheeks, darkening her face. With her arms still clasped, covering, Mikasa froze Noralis with a black-dead glare. The fire in Noralis's eyes snuffed out.

"I'm sorry, I—"

Mikasa shoved off the couch. She put herself into a hug and started toward the double glass doors. Worms squirmed in her stomach. She wanted to vomit. Her lip stung, as if Noralis had injected a mild venom. Mikasa didn't know why she did what she did. She didn't know herself much at all right then.

She crashed through the double glass doors. They trembled when they fell shut.

She walked across the patio blindly, clenching her teeth, her cheeks spotted with dark bleeding pits. Pool water was flung, scattered by her feet. Stacked pairs of teammates in the pool wrestled in a chicken fight. She froze their game with her black-dead stare.

"Sorry, we didn't mean to get you wet."

Mikasa continued.

"Mikasa, Mikasa, wait—"

Mikasa walked, faster, jerking her legs, one after the other. Eren caught up in two strides. "I'm sorry, Mikasa. Listen. Noralis was just playing. I swear."

"She humiliated me."

"She didn't mean to. That's how Nora's friends tease each other. It's weird, but that's how they do. I don't know what it is, but they act that way all the time. It wasn't supposed to make you feel bad." Mikasa slowed. Eren slowed with her. Their feet stopped. "She was just playing, but Nora should've known you wouldn't be okay with it."

"She bit me. And it wasn't a light nip, either."

"She gets like that when she's tipsy. You're lucky she didn't split your lip. I've had my mouth busted open before." Eren modulated his tone, just right. He looked at Mikasa, just right. Mikasa was exasperated, pulled in by him despite her contradictory emotions. "When Nora's drunk, she comes on to random girls and they like causing a scene for attention. I don't like it, and I think it's annoying. But I have to pick my battles with her, and that's not one I feel like fighting."

"I don't care what your girlfriend does when she's drunk."

"Noralis told me why y'all did what you did," Eren said. At that, Mikasa was embarrassed again, but of herself now. "She can't teach you anything. Knowing how to kiss Nora is only good for knowing how to kiss Nora."

Mikasa sighed. She held herself in a comfort. "Before I graduate, I want to at least break my winning streak at Never Have I Ever."

"What? That's what this is about?" Eren shook his head incredulously. "There's nothing wrong with having a winning streak. It's just a game that nasty people like to play so they can brag about being nasty. But winning? Who can do that?"

"Losers."

Eren sucked his teeth. "Dang, Mikasa. It's a good thing. You have my respect for sticking to your principles."

"I don't want to be some boring loner who takes life too seriously all the time. I want to be a little more like you and Noralis."

Eren's eyes, all at once, turned to liquid. "You're stressing over nothing. But if it bothers you that much . . ." He pointed. "Down that hill, there's a dock. Nobody's at the lake right now 'cause they're all up here. Go see what's up. Take Nora with you. She wants to apologize, and y'all can go down there, make up, drink, talk, whatever, I don't know." He shrugged. "I'ma stay inside and shoot pool. Just—never mind. I'll tell Nora to meet you down there."

# # #

The dock had a roof and a sundeck. A large pontoon boat and twin jet skis hovered on lifts over the water. The lake was still and tranquil with nighttime. Darkness cloaked night creatures. Bats darted in and out of floodlights and insects frenzied and threw spidery shadows. Mikasa sat on the sundeck, holding her knees. She watched the lake and the mirror-moon. Gingerly Noralis stepped onto the platform in her strappy sandals.

"Mikasa, I'm sorry. I didn't mean nothing." Both her approach and voice were gingerly and soft. She stayed her distance. "I was just playing."

Mikasa sighed. "It's fine."

Still cautious, as if Mikasa might suddenly swipe at her, Noralis crept across the sundeck and, a foot away, she sat down. Her short legs extended straight out. "I know girls that act skittish like you. You had a bad time with a boy. Now you feel nervous and don't like being touched."

"No, nothing that dramatic. A couple boys played a mean joke on me once. But that's it."

"Boys play mean jokes on us. But we ain't no joke." Noralis lifted her red solo cup. Mikasa did the same. They tapped the rims and drank.

"Did you have a bad experience with a boy?" said Mikasa.

"Many, many boys. But it don't matter. I am _perfección_." Noralis flipped her hair. She smiled a perfect smile. Mikasa smiled too. They shared an implicit connection.

Noralis lied back on her hands. She lifted her face to the lake. "You know," she said, "Eren didn't like to be called _papi_ at first. But he's okay with it now. I told myself I'd never call another man _papi_ after my first relationship. It was bad, and I got hurt and it made me believe I only deserved to be hurt for the rest of my life. But one day, I accidentally called Eren '_papi'_ and it felt so good that I just always call him that. After a while, he didn't mind it no more. It's like I washed out the bad memory and made Eren my only _papi_." Noralis's eyes moistened and made themselves shiny in the yellow floodlighting. "He is too good to be with me."

They were quiet. They watched the lake and the reflected moon. Mikasa raised her chin from her knees.

_Never Have I Ever . . . _

Mikasa grew restless. She was collapsing time in her imagination and imagined herself, thirty, forty, sixty years old. She had a silent conversation with herself: 'Twenty years from now, what do you have that can show I was once seventeen?' she asked. 'Were you ever really seventeen?' herself replied. 'Does a seventeen-year-old have to try to be seventeen? Maybe being seventeen was never meant for you, me, us.' 'no,' she argued. 'no, no, no.'

_Never Have I Ever,_ what? in her mind was the image of an unspeakably pure white paper of all the things she never did.

"Hey, Noralis," Mikasa said, restless. "Have you ever gone skinny-dipping?"

"Skinny-dipping?" Noralis was surprised. "You want to go skinny-dipping?"

"I feel like that's something everybody does at least once. Do you think any alligators are in the water?"

"You scared, _niña_? You gone pee your granny panties and cry?"

"No."

"Truth or dare?"

"You're going to dare me to jump in the lake."

"I dare you to jump in the lake," Noralis said. "With all your clothes off." She curled her fingers under her buttoned crop top. It dropped to the deck in an inside-out wad. Her bra was black lace.

"Let's go together, _niña_." She grabbed Mikasa by the upper arms, giggling. "Come on, come on." There was the buzz of a zipper. Noralis removed her high-waisted shorts. Her thong whispered to her ankles. She was all curves and bright skin and kinky curls. She didn't try to hide. "Hurry, Mikasa." She stepped out, naked, in the yellow floodlight.

Noralis's feet left the deck. Dark water came swiftly over her and drank her down. Then she returned. Her head buoyed in the black. She smiled up at Mikasa and waved. Mikasa shed her clothes too and covered herself with her hands. She peered over the edge, down at Noralis.

"Jump. It's okay. The water's nice. Let's go!" Noralis's voice died. Her breath jammed. "Oh, shit," she squeaked. "Someone's coming. Jump, _niña_. Jump!"

Then there was nothing under Mikasa's feet, nothing on Mikasa but skin. The air contacted her, everywhere. How alive she was in that instant. In that instant, time collapsed again in her imagination. 'What do you have to show now?'

The water closed on her in a frigid shock. She came up, gasping.

"It's cold."

"Yes. I lied. _Es frío_." Noralis hugged Mikasa from behind, squinting up at the dock. Perfume washed off her skin as she hung to Mikasa's back. They shivered against each other. "Someone's up there, I swear to God. They prolly creepin'."

A tall lean shadow passed under the floodlight. Mikasa ducked until lake water licked her earlobes. Over Mikasa's shoulder, Noralis had a menacing threat and a loaded pistol of screaming cuss words at the ready. Shadow dripped off the tall lean figure until Ymir emerged darkly under the dock's roof. She dropped her shoulder against the roof's post, slanted in and out of light, her freckles spinning on her cheekbones.

"Ain't y'all precious," she said, condescending at them.

"Ymir."

"What's good?"

"Oh, my god. Why you even here? Ugh." Noralis threw her head back, groaning. "No invite for you. Buh-bye."

"What if some punk-ass clown come down this dock and finesse yo' clothes? What'chu gon' do?"

"Ain't nobody gone come down that dock," Noralis said. "They all up at they house." Ymir grinned and, condescendingly, coiled a short twist at the front of her fohawk. Noralis smacked her tongue on her teeth. "Why you got to give me that face? You try'na be cute?"

"Why? Think I'm cute?"

"Everybody think you cute. That's why you always got that smug look. Don't try and act slow. Homegirl ain't foolin' nobody."

"Dayum." Ymir's grin widened and stretched her lips. Her finger still twirled a hair-twist. "Mask off, I guess." Then she settled down against the post, out of the floodlight, covering herself in the dark. One leg was pulled up. In her hand, she had a tennis ball. She bounced it, caught it, bounced it again. She said nothing more, bouncing the ball evenly, as if the dock were alive with a heartbeat.

Unlike Reiner, she never dropped anything at any time across any continuum.

"Mikasa, can I ask you something random." Noralis was soft and warm. The water immediately around her was warmed in turn. Her arms lightly draped, crossing Mikasa's neckline.

"Okay."

"When's the longest you ever gone without having your period?"

"I don't know, why?"

"I'm wondering if my woman parts isn't working right."

"Maybe around three months," Mikasa said. "Four?"

"Tch." Ymir spat viciously. The tennis ball paused, wedged in her fingers, the dock dying of its heartbeat. "Ain't nothing wrong with you, Noralis. You need to face facts and figure out a plan. Take some responsibility for yourself." Then Ymir shot Mikasa a cutting side-eye. It wasn't her usual sneer. "But you, Mikasa. There's something seriously wrong with you."

Mikasa silently stared up at Ymir from the black water.

"When you stop eating, your body stops functioning. Do you want to fall over, dead? is that what you want?"

"Bitch, ain't nobody ask you for a fucken lecture," Noralis said. "At least get your phrasing right. Say it better than how you do."

"Baby girl, listen to me. You got to pull yo'self together. If you want to change anything, it's you that's got to change first."

"She think she knows everything," Noralis muttered into Mikasa's ear. Their profiles brushed in a gentle sway as they treaded water. "She's so annoying."

They were silent. By then, the shivering had melted off their bodies. For a while more, they floated and swam and laughed and enjoyed their time together. Noralis dared Mikasa to dive under and touch the bottom of the lake. She did. Mikasa dared Noralis to swim out to the 50-yard marker. Noralis did not do this. She was not a good swimmer, she said. Ymir laughed at them occasionally, mocking, and bounced the tennis ball in an even rhythm that seemed familiar and ubiquitous, somehow, as if it matched the natural frequency of a thousand universes. Ten years from then, Mikasa would see Noralis again, perhaps in this time or another, and they'd swim inside the memory, feeling gently fond of the night, also mildly embarrassed. _Kids_, they'd say, blushing.

After a while, Ymir took out her phone. It flushed blue light across her face.

"A'ight, ladies. Put your clothes back on. It's time to head back. I get the feeling Eren's about to show his ass soon. That dude can't just chill to save his life."

# # #

In the rec room, a handful of boys sat on stools and drank and gossiped like women at the salon. At the middle of the room was a pool table of satiny wood with carved scrollwork. It had abalone and mother of pearl double-diamond sights down the rails. A chandelier hung above it.

Pool balls banged around in the bed.

When all motion stopped, the boys on the stools laughed. "That was piss," they said. They were mildly drunk and too loud.

"A'ight. Let's see how you do." Eren went to stand by Reiner, holding his cue stick like a staff.

A lanky boy with wet-looking black eyes and a protuberant Adam's apple in his throat set up. He shot. A ball fell in. He went around and shot again. Another ball sank. Reiner thwacked Eren on the back. "No worries," he said.

"Oh, god." Eren stuck his fingers in his eyes like he'd been seized by a splitting headache. "I'm straight piss."

Laughter from the guys on the stools. Again, too loud.

The lanky boy set up a third time, his mind anticipating the movement of the balls if he hit them this way or that. His all-black eyes cut up from his lowered posture. "Bet that's what your girlfriend says too," he said, "when you—" then he shot out an insult about Eren performing oral on his girlfriend's anus. It was a shot meant to injure.

"Whoa— Okay, guy," said Eren. He wasn't yet angry or injured, but something began to tick in the back of his consciousness. "Shoot your next shot. And I mean the game."

Never removing his eyes from the lanky boy, calculating him, Eren bent his voice to Reiner's ear and spoke under his breath. "That dude's hostile, right? I'm not imagining it."

"No. You're not imagining it. You ever talk to Milin at all?"

"Never in my life."

Milin Patel was ranked third in their class, behind Ymir, the salutatorian, who was behind Armin, the valedictorian. Milin wasn't at house parties often, but he dealt marijuana and brought in a flow of cash from it. A Rolex flashed on his wrist. His turn was finished. He held his cue stick and clamped a levelled pugnacious stare on Eren. He raked back the long black hair on the top of his head.

"If he don't quit muggin'," Eren hissed into Reiner's ear.

"I don't know what his problem is," Reiner whispered back. "But let it slide. Don't start anything. It's not gonna be good."

Eren clicked his teeth. He walked around the table and set up. He released the pole onto the cue. The balls slammed around for a bit. Eren's eyes scattered left and right with the scatter of balls. Things stilled. Things quieted. Nothing dropped.

"Can't even hit a single hole?" Milin said flatly, staring at Eren flatly. "No wonder your girlfriend's a thirsty ho-bag."

"Are you trying to be funny?" The ticking in Eren's consciousness grew louder. "'Cause it ain't funny. And if you keep going, I'ma have to pop you in the damn mouth."

Across the pool table, the two boys stared silently and steadily at each other. The group of mildly drunk boys on the stools were quiet too, and still. Alcohol made them itch for a fight. They wanted to jump in and bang their fists around for no reason at all in a decent heart-pounding house-party brawl. Reiner grew uneasy as the energy passed from boy to boy in a social contagion. The room fizzled with hostility. Reiner bristled and expanded next to Eren.

"Noralis goes around, running her mouth twenty-four seven. She never shuts the hell up and it's about to bite her in the ass. 'Cause let me tell you, man, she had a lot to say about you." Milin leaned against his cue stick. "About how boring and lazy you were. About how lonely she was. About your dick—" He signed an anatomical lacking with his fingers. "We been banging since summer. Made me swear not to say anything. But listen. I'm not about all that. You got fucked over. Worse than I did. So why don't you and I link up, brother, and tagteam this bitch."

"Yeah? And how we do that," Eren said, "guy?"

"You have pics? Video?"

"What?"

"Look." Milin lifted his phone. A video played, unmuted. The boys on stools snickered and clapped each other, making sure they all saw it. "Idiots actually paid me cash for this. This stupid amateur six-minute clip. If you got pics, videos, whatever, I know somebody with distribution channels, the whole hook-up. It'd be sweet fucking revenge, brother, _and_ you'd be putting a little cash-money in your pockets." He smiled smartly. "She's eighteen so we straight."

"Sh-i-i-i-t. Straight? like straight G's? Aha-ha-ha!" Eren laughed. Reiner knew it wasn't a laugh. Eren inverted his head, speaking to Reiner in a fraying rising voice. "This man think he slick. This man think he got it all figured out. This man think—" Eren thumped his finger on his temple, so hard, so crazily, the vessels in his eyes throbbed, "we _straight_."

"Eren," Reiner said. "Chill. Don't start anything."

The crazy fled Eren's eyes. Any expression whatsoever fell off his skull. He looked at Milin. "Go fuck yourself," he said, but there was no inflection, no emotion, no anything. Eren went cold the way some boys go cold after knowingly locking themselves into an awful decision. "Guy—"

By the time Mikasa, Ymir, and Noralis arrived at the rec room, Milin Patel was standing off to the side, a finger in his red mouth, feeling at his teeth. He swished, puckered up his lips, and squirted. A gob of drool and blood splatted. Eren and Reiner were swiping through a phone that was neither Eren's nor Reiner's, but Milin Patel's. They discussed what they should do; should cops get involved?; is it trackable?; can the video be contained?; she's eighteen, will anybody do anything at all?; what are her rights? they don't teach us this shit.

Eren and Reiner looked up from the phone. When Eren saw Noralis, his face darkened. "Noralis," he said. "What did you do?"

Noralis looked between Eren and Milin and Eren again and panic closed down over her face. "I'm sorry, _papi_. I didn't mean to. I don't know what I was thinking. I been confused. I don't know what's wrong with me."

Eren went to her stiffly, his face dark and harsh. She shrank a bit. Then, suddenly, he enveloped her in a hug. For a while, he held her as if he would never again hold her, holding her so tight his eyes shut, his nose resting in her wet hair. Then he kissed her on the lips and said: "I can't do this anymore."

"What you sayin'?"

"All this—_shit_ seems to happen 'cause of the choices you make. And I'm tired, Nora. I'm tired of dealing with it. If you woulda just been loyal, none of this woulda happened."

"Loyal? You think this was about loyalty? You was distant and cold, and you never wanted to do nothing with me. Do you know how that made me feel? Blaming me like it's all my fault. You're out of your mind."

"If I'm out of my mind, it's 'cause you drove me there."

"You drive me out of _my_ mind. If you woulda just made me feel like you still cared, none of this woulda happened."

"Fine, Noralis. Whatever. This obviously isn't working."

"No, baby. No. You're _mi amor._" She took his face into her hands.

"Make Yenaida take you home. I'm leaving." He dragged her hands from his face. He turned. He started to the door.

Mikasa looked at Eren. Mikasa looked at Noralis. She watched the gap between the two split open like two plates of the earth diverging, farther, farther, disturbing everything in their separation.

"I'm sorry," Mikasa said to Noralis.

"Bitch, you ain't sorry." Inside Noralis, the turbulent emotions grinded and rumbled, like structures in an earthquake, as she began to implode. "This is what you wanted. This is what you always wanted. You was always selfish and try'na take him from me—" She cut herself off with a cry. Her hand shot to the back of her curls.

Ymir's palm was flat and poised, having smacked Noralis on the head. "You done messed it up. That ain't Mikasa's fault. Just swallow they pill like a big girl, now." Noralis's face was twisted and awful. Then it quavered and she fought it, resisting. Then the awfulness finally burst out. She let out a fresh bath of tears, her heart emptying, sanitizing her into something clean and new. Her face glowed like a newborn's. Ymir wrapped her up and Noralis turned and cried on her shoulder.

Out the rec room and out the double glass doors, Mikasa went after Eren.

The sound of wind and movement rushed out at her. A breeze pulled at her hair and oversized shirt. Mikasa searched the patio, then past it. She picked out a shadow jerking toward the pine forest. She went after it, running. The shadow dissolved and Eren's windblown hair came into view, his wide shoulders.

Mikasa fell in beside him. She didn't say anything and, even without looking at her, Eren knew it was Mikasa and began talking.

"She needs tough love. I can't let up just 'cause I feel bad," he told her. "If I don't be a hard-ass, nothing's gonna change. This shit always happens with her. It makes me sick to my stomach. And I'm tired. She's never gonna make things better for herself if she don't change her habits. She's just gonna keep going out, finding the biggest douche she can. People can't change other people. People got to change themselves. That's what I think. And if Nora's gonna choose to go down in flames, I'd rather die than be a witness to it."

"You did your best, Eren."

"No, I didn't. And that really sucks."

It was strange. While Eren walked over the grass, Mikasa watched him move as if he were slowing down each second, as though time were stretching out like a rubberband, the intervals between each tick of the clock growing, increasing, _tick, tick . . tick . . . . tick . . . . . . . tick._ Then Eren moved not at all, his foot lifted from the ground, suspended in space, arms fixed like frozen pendulums. Then everything, slowly, began to crank back in reverse, him walking backward now, the one lifted foot slowly sucked back behind the other, in an inversion of motion. The rotation of the earth had slowed and stilled and Mikasa watched from an otherworldly distance, removed, as everything that was broken and shattered, like an explosion, pulled back into the point of detonation and impulsion, everything reverting back to the before.

Then it all—

stopped.

The Present

The doctor had her legs crossed, typing on her laptop. Mikasa sat on a couch, not seeing the doctor, scribbling on a lined notepad which she'd been given as a part of her treatment. Her mind was going backward again.

In her brain, it was March. She was at school. It was lunchtime. Outside the cafeteria, there were identical people in identical purple shirts with the name McKenzie Haart in calligraphy and scripture on the back: _Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my __righteous __right hand – Isaiah 41:10_

These people sat together, speaking in cold, obdurate voices. The service had been held a day before. Half the town had attended.

Everything's fucked up, they were saying.

McKenzie didn't get a _choice_, they said. She wanted to _live_.

God should've put him in McKenzie's body, they said. Since he didn't appreciate the blessing he'd been given.

Why can't people like him be the ones that get cancer? It's not fair, they said. Everything's so wrong.

(He was sick too. He wanted to live too.)

McKenzie was sick for real. She suffered for months, they said. Chemo destroyed her.

(I'm sorry she suffered. But so did he.)

He couldn't even begin to _comprehend_ suffering. He was a coward. A selfish pathetic coward, they said. Everybody will remember McKenzie. Nobody will remember him. He should just be erased forever.

Mikasa's jaws grinded and her teeth screamed upon each other. _these lake valley people, - - - - - ._ She scribbled in her notebook and scratched her lips. Crust tore off. She ran her tongue over a rust-flavored opening. _how could they say that? how could anybody in the whole world say that?_ she scribbled.

She was supposed to speak to the doctor. She was always supposed to speak to the doctor. There was nothing to say anymore, ever, to anyone.

They gave her a notepad to communicate through, as a part of her treatment. She scribbled on it.

Her insides ate themselves in self-cannibalism. She said nothing. Eaten up. Consumed. She heard the crackling skin on her lips as she sat, the doctor like a buoy in an upholstered armchair across from her, her laptop clacking. Mikasa's pen scratched the paper. Blood surged in Mikasa's head. A throb edged out her vision. Before she knew it, she was going blind. Then she wasn't. She could see again. The doctor floated across from her, typing. Mikasa saw her own wrists in her lap. The knob of her wrist joints. The scabs. They were not her wrists. Not her joints. An artery throbbed in her neck. It was her pulse. Not her pulse.

It was the silence she fed on. The wordlessness. If she didn't speak, she didn't need to eat. She was growing smaller, infinitely. An infinity in reverse like an unbirthing. She wasn't dying, she was becoming the before, before the beginning, shrinking out of time, withering back in time.

"Your resting heart rate is abnormally low," said the doctor.

The skin of Mikasa's lips crackled. She was growing smaller. Her veins inflated, deflated. The blood squeezed and grated through the veins like dirt.

"I'm going to go ahead and move forward with the IV. All right?" Mikasa's body was eating itself like a cannibal. To keep the heart from losing mass, her body told it to pump slower; it did this very well. Blood squeezed like granules of dirt in her veins.

It was April something or other. or was it? i don't know.

Mikasa sank back into the couch. She was like silence, substanceless, invisible. She wanted to sleep. She didn't want to sleep. It was frightening falling asleep. To succumb into a black, not knowing until you were awake that you'd been sleeping, like you'd been dead, brought back alive. Like that. Losing time in the black fathoms. Was she dying? Almost. The longer we're here, the less time we have left. Each second lived is each second lost. Stay awake. As long as I'm awake, she thought. Her mind went backward and remembered, traveling back in time psychically.

_don't fall asleep_, she scratched on the paper_._ _you have good timing— I always know when the time will be— I'm free to cut ties and move on— _Remembering is where her mind was, her hand scratching the paper, voices, drowned muffled voices whispering to her from her memory in no particular order, from no particular dimension;_ people like us know— but this is the last time— that's not enough time— I wanted to tell you I was sorry— _

"And we'll also be administering a sedative to help your insomnia. Okay?"

* * *

a/n: thefinishedman, i liked how you said dimension traveler. that was awesome.


	9. November

a/n:

Words 11K

* * *

November

Annie, sitting on the edge of her dorm bed, watched the burn of her cigarette as its miniature flame chewed the paper to ash. "It's like watching my own lifespan," she said dimly, in the low light.

"That's morbid," Armin said.

The community college's dorm rooms were inside The Jacaranda, which was an elegant historic hotel from the 1920's. Feet had scrubbed rawness and faded paths into the carpeted floors. It was a moribund building and sweetly sad.

Annie wore a cotton white camisole. Her hair was a sleepy droop over her face. "I think most people self-sabotage. One way or another," she said. "How about you? How do you self-sabotage?"

"I don't know," Armin said.

Behind her droopy hair, Annie sucked on her cigarette and closed her eyes and drew in deeply. Her organs, she imagined staining into a black rot, like in anti-smoking ads.

"Your friends are easy to read," Annie said. "You're a little harder to pin." She crushed the figurative lifespan in the ashtray and went to Armin. In front of an old vanity mirror, Armin sat in a swivel chair. She wheeled him to face his reflection, standing behind him. Together they looked at the glass and found each other's faces. Her hands, like two furless animals, holed away under Amin's hair.

"It's getting shaggy," she told him.

"I haven't been to the barber," he said.

"Do you want me to cut it for you?"

"Do you know how to cut hair?"

"No."

"Why would I let you cut my hair?"

"It'd be free." Her hands scampered around like two animals, digging in the blond shag.

"That hurts, Annie."

"Sorry." She lightly, gently now, skimmed her nails over his scalp. The right hand had long nails. The left hand had meticulously trimmed nails. _This hand's for clawing eyes out,_ she had told him, _this hand's for knocking windpipes. _

"I've thought about cosmetology school," she said. "What do you think?"

"If that's what you want," he said.

"I don't think there's much that I want."

"Really? There's a lot that I want."

The mirror pulled their eyes together.

"Like what?" she said.

"Like getting out of Lake Valley," he said.

"What else?"

"I want to study cognitive neuroscience."

"Not neurosurgery?"

"I thought about that too."

Laughing voices sounded in the hall. A door opened and the voices shrank away from the hall. The door thudded shut and it was quiet again. Every now and again, a faint laughing voice would climb like an apparition.

"What else do you want?" Annie said.

"I want to move my grandpa someplace safer," he said.

Annie used the long black-painted fingernails to tuck hair behind his ear. The mirror drew their eyes together and they studied each other in glass reflections. "Will you come watch me at Stonewashed?" Stonewashed was the local coffee shop where they'd met for the first time. "There's going to be a show next month. I'll be playing."

"Why do you sound self-deprecating about it?" Armin said.

"Everybody goes through a childhood fantasy of being in a garage band. I just never grew out of that phase."

"Is your band any good?"

"No."

Armin laughed. Annie walked to her dorm bed. Metal latches snapped. They were released, undone. The guitar case was flipped open. She took out the elegant instrument and sank on the bed. Her legs folded, crisscross, the guitar slanted, sheening deep wood, across her lap. She strummed with the long, painted nails. The strings shimmered and shook and sounds wafted like a soft glow. Armin spun the swivel chair. He leaned his chin on the backrest.

"Want to hear a song I'm working on?" Annie said.

"I don't know much about music," Armin said. "I can't offer any constructive criticism or anything."

"Why do boys always think we're looking for something? I want you to listen. That's all."

The long nails strummed. The short nails pressed down strings on frets. Her fingers flowed like a wind bursting and washing over the instrument, moving it in sways and vibrations. Annie began to sing.

_There was a boy in a small town_

_With a small house, nobody home, nothing found,_

_Nothing to call his own, A long and lonely road,_

_He wanted to go anywhere, He didn't care where_

_The place didn't matter, Anywhere's better _

_Anywhere's better than here_

The music was a soft glow, gently filling the dorm room. Armin closed his eyes, listening better. He felt himself drifting like smoke. A slow and dreamy fade. Away, far, swaying into the distance. They were two people in the hang, living on a cosmic sphere forever turning in its rotations and revolutions, making them older, making them sadder, making them want more than everything of everything, suspended in indifferent answerless space.

Armin realized why he was thinking his own thoughts. The smoke coiled back down in a violent shock. He came awake, cold. Annie was soft and gentle on his eyes. The music snuffed out like a lantern.

"That's what I have so far," Annie said, averted. Her hair was loose, softly dreamy over her face. Armin looked at her. Annie felt him looking and, averted, she let him look.

"Was that supposed to be about me?" Armin said.

"What, are you the Valedictorian of obvious questions?"

"I didn't want to assume anything."

"I would tell you that you should never date a musician because they use dirty tricks to make people fall in love with them. But that would be self-sabotage."

"Is this a dirty trick?" Armin's hands came together, like a prayer, against his mouth.

"No."

"Oh." Armin seemed to pray for himself.

"Are you falling for me or something?"

"I like you," he said.

Annie was silent, her hair a lazy fall. The acoustic guitar rested, vast and shining, magnificent, in her lap. She frowned, embarrassed.

"I like you," Armin said again, "but the timing couldn't be worse. My life's a mess right now." He reached his hands apart, palms up, in an appeal for her understanding. "My grandpa," he explained.

"I understand." Annie's peeling black-painted fingernails flicked life into the guitar. The strings shimmered with music. Annie shimmered too in her thin white camisole, one strap draped off her shoulder. "If your life's a mess right now," she said, "then maybe the timing couldn't be better."

Armin watched Annie, still averted from him, slide her thumb under the camisole strap and, lazily, drag it back into place. All the time, Annie felt him watching.

November

Multiple days in a row, Eren missed school. The reason: A stomach bug. This wasn't a lie. He was nauseated. But no matter how much Pepto Bismol he guzzled, his stomach wouldn't settle. It was not a physiological problem. It was an illusion his brain created, giving him a sense of motion because there was a lot of activity happening inside of him without it happening outside of him.

When he finally stepped onto campus, imaginary camera lenses spun in his head like a carousel, making him sick with circles and lights. In some realities, he was healing from bruises. In others, he was physically intact. In all realities, he was mentally and emotionally fragmented.

The sidewalks and halls were empty. First period began eight minutes ago. He showed his I.D. to the school resource officer. He was let through a black-bar institutional gate.

Students didn't know, but a lockdown drill was scheduled for 1:30 PM. At 1:30, a voice would come onto the intercom: _Lockdown activated._ Students wouldn't be told if it was a drill or if it was an attack against humanity. They thought it was a drill, probably, most likely, maybe not, is this real? Teachers were mandated not to soothe any fears. They were to perform and act like it was the 'real deal,' in the superintendent's words.

With the truth kept from them, students would move in a silent panic, making barricades, turning out lights, arming themselves with random objects, wondering if today was the day it would finally happen. If today was the day they'd be killed in combat, the way they'd been warned about a hundred times. Girls held each other. Boys made walls out of themselves, talking themselves up into a heroic spirit. _I need to protect these people. I can do it. I can do it._ Then they hesitated, struck down by self-preserving instinct:_ Why me? Why do I have to be on the frontlines? _

This all would happen at 1:30 PM. It was only 8:28 AM now.

Eren went to the bathroom and took out a baggy of tablets he'd taken from the master bathroom. It was alprazolam. Both Grisha and Carla had prescriptions. Though he didn't know it, taking this drug would dissolve the panic attack he would've experienced at 1:30 PM.

Here's the thing about Eren Jaeger: He'd inherited an ancestry of quirks. The great grandfather on the father's side had leapt off a bridge when he was forty-three. Something coded in the genetics had manifested and made him insane. It showed up again in the son from Grisha's first marriage, who'd been Baker Acted for standing naked on the street, screaming his lungs out for no apparent reason.

The reason was not apparent, but the first son had inherited exceptional intelligence from Grisha, who'd inherited exceptional intelligence from his mother, who'd inherited it from her father: the man who'd jumped off the bridge. This exceptional intelligence made them question the existential significance of every minute thought and experience, and toiled their above-average brains into a relentless commotion. Knowing a lot meant there was only one thing they could be certain of, which was that they didn't know much of anything at all. This had driven the great grandfather to jump off a bridge and had spiraled the first son into a psychotic episode. It was temporary, but it was time enough to be arrested and shoved into the back of a police car. Not a week later, the first wife and son moved to Illinois. Eren was no older than three when it happened. By then, he was already showing signs of imagination and creative problem-solving.

A more sinister genetic quirk, Eren had inherited from his mother. For the past four generations, every man on his mother's side had died of failed kidneys, which is what alcoholism did to you. This was true for every man except Raymond, who was dying of lung cancer, which he'd developed from a different addiction. Currently, Eren's great uncle bumbled around with wet brain and didn't know who he himself was anymore and believed his late mother was still alive, though she'd died almost twenty years ago. The great uncle had a few more years yet to live, and then die. This precursor for addiction lived in Eren's blood, too.

Eren swallowed a tablet and crushed his hands into fists until the levels of agitation fell and the carousel of cameras grinded to a halt and disappeared. Then he went to class. When the door opened, the teacher snapped around and told him he was tardy, and marked it on the attendance record. He sat down. He put his head on his desk. Inside him, the body's sleep chemical inundated his nervous system. The teacher slapped his desk with her hand. He opened his foggy eyes, waking without knowing he'd been asleep. Waiting was a signed referral that said:_ tardy, dress code violation (2nd time), repeatedly sleeping in class._

Thirty pairs of eyes watched him shamble to the door. Then Eren shambled to the front office. The nervous system operated at a quarter-speed, drifting him into a fog. As he went along, images rolled into and past his view. As if he were watching a film play on a television screen, Eren felt only secondhand. His view took in the halls, the walls, the sidewalks, the passing people, everything going through him, retracting into a vacuum, past where his brain should've been sitting, processing. The world was pulled into his retina, sucked away into nothingness.

Eren moved very slow, taking twice the time it should take to move one foot in front of the other.

He opened the door to the front office and shambled down the hall to the door with a plaque that read: Dean of Students.

The dean of students was a stocky bald man. When Eren walked through the door, Eren's own voice was in his ears, speaking like it came from an echo: "You know how many guys I seen walking around, holding their pants up 'cause they gonna fall off? Why am I the only one called out? Mine stay up."

The dean sat in his office chair, looking up at Eren under his bald head with little hard blue eyes. "You better change your tone when you speak to me or you'll be sitting in this office all day every day till Christmas."

"All I'm saying is, there's about fifteen other guys out there worse than _this_." Eren spread his hands. His own voice was in his ears like an echo down a black tunnel. "Y'all inconsistent. You can't do nothing about those kids who don't care, so you nitpick the ones who do to make a point. Why should I even try if that's how it's gonna be?"

"Listen here, bud. If you care so much, why are you sleeping in all your classes? Now, that don't suggest to me that you care a lick about a damn near thing. You want to disagree?" The dean waited. There was no answer. He went on: "You might disagree with this too, but the world doesn't revolve around you. So that chip you got setting on your shoulder? I suggest you knock it away and grow yourself a pair of balls and quit your acting like a neutered pup. Are you listening?" The dean was quiet. Eren was quiet. "I asked you a question."

"Yes sir," Eren said.

"Put your hands on the desk."

"Yes sir."

Eren laid his palms across the desk. The dean walked around, unhurriedly. His eyes scoped like a searchlight, striking Eren into an explicit sense of helplessness, stripping Eren with that invisible beam of authority. Eren stared at the wall, helpless, as the dean's eyes seemed to pat him down and turn out his pockets and turn out his skin, and empty Eren and spread out the contents, putting each piece, one by one, under judgement.

By the back belt-loop, the dean clutched Eren's jeans. With a sharp twist, he wrenched them up, raw.

Eren strained onto his toes, his palms flat on the desk. Air spat out of him. The dean, holding the jeans wrenched up, cinched the loops with a zip-tie. The jeans were locked, wrenched up. Eren's hands came off the desk. Barely, he turned around, stuffed in his pants, like a sleeve of packaged meat. The dean looked at the sheen of Eren's eyes.

"Why do your eyes look like that? You on something?"

"No. I'm tired."

"Watch that tone. Do you talk to your mama that way?"

"No," Eren said.

"No _sir_," said the dean.

"No sir."

"Do you have any idea how much of these teachers' valuable time you waste every day? They work too hard and don't get paid nearly enough to be dealing with entitled thug-wannabe's."

"Excuse me?"

A ringing sound came from the distance.

"You heard me," the dean said. "That's the way you present yourself, so that's what people are going to assume about the kind of kid you are. The image you're projecting right now works against you. It's a choice you make every day. Every morning you wake up and dress yourself and choose what the rest of us are going to see."

"That's only half the truth, sir."

"It's the whole truth. You choose what image you put up."

"No, sir." The ringing was growing closer and closer, rising. "Besides that, I'm a little offended you think my mama would ever raise a thug or some idiot who aspires to be one. Who do you think my mama is?"

"Hold on a minute—"

"Nah. You trippin'." The ringing was right in Eren's ears now. "I suddenly want to be a thug 'cause I hate belts. Why don't you call up my mama right now and tell her what you told me? Go ahead. I'd love to listen in on that conversation."

"Don't get so uptight. You're twisting my words. Settle down, now."

"Uptight? I got a denim seam crammed in my buttcrack. Ya best believe I'm uptight." Eren's ears were full of the ringing sound. "All y'all treat me like I'm a bad person. But I'm not a bad person."

"Did I say you were a bad person? I said you present yourself in a way that has negative associations. If you want people to think something different about you, then change what their eyes are seeing. This isn't a matter of you against the world. It's you against yourself." They were both quiet, looking at each other. "All right. That's enough, then. Mrs. Morrison is waiting for you in ISS." They were both quiet again, looking at each other. "Yes sir," said the dean.

"Yes sir," said Eren.

Eren toddled to the ISS room, packed in like processed meat. His eyes were glazed and blank and dead-tired. Mrs. Morrison held the door for him and guided him to an isolated study carrel: "All right, baby. You sit here, now. You know what to do."

"Yes ma'am." Eren sat, tugging at the crotch of his jeans. Silently and obediently, he began his work. Fifteen minutes or so went by. Eren put his chin in his hand, a pencil poised in the other, and went to sleep, sitting up, a cardboard cut-out posed in a lifelike spoof.

Half-sleeping, Eren ideated. In his mind, he saw himself going into a deep unbroken forever-sleep. In a slow sweet medicinal drip, his thoughts seeped down into this slow sweet promise.

Here's the thing about thoughts: Once a thought burns a pathway in your mindscape, the thought becomes easier to fire a second time, making it even easier to fire a third time, and so on, and the pathway burns itself deeper into your brain matter each time you think it, deeper, deeper, until the fire blazes down a canyon as smooth as scorched glass without any effort or volition from you, all on its own, uncontrolled by anything. This is how obsessions are formed.

At some point, Eren had started thinking he hated himself. He thought it once. Then he thought it repeatedly. Now a deep groove ran across the surface of his brain, flowing constantly with this idea. The thought was a permanent centerpiece, like a crystal chandelier in a big shifting room. He imagined himself evaporating into an unbroken forever-sleep.

As Eren sat, half-asleep, poised with the pencil in his hand, suddenly a new idea, even more dangerous than the last, fired once through his brain.

Then again it fired.

November

During the week, Reiner invited Eren to the school's weight room with two other guys from the football team. Reiner needed a spotter. Eren agreed to spot him. The four grunted and muscled through a strength workout, and though Eren wasn't nearly as strong, leaned and trimmed by swimming, unable to lift impressive sums of weight, the other three encouraged him like a friend, a brother, a person they'd known forever. They gave him emphatic back-slaps and told him as long as he put in one-hundred percent, he was capable of anything.

In that moment, Eren began to think he was feeling pretty good. Better than he'd been feeling for some time. Then, like a machine, his brain worked on volitionless automation and violated his own thinking and he was invaded with the idea that he hated himself. The feeling of feeling pretty good was usurped. On the inside, there was nothing left. On the outside, he muscled through and was slapped heartily on the back.

Downtown there was something of a skate park. A handful of guys glided and grinded and kickflipped their boards. The little hard plastic wheels negotiated human balance with all the concrete obstacles, the bowls and rolls and rails and ramps. A couple boys with long hair sat on a platform, smoking cigarettes. A little farther down the street was a basketball court.

After leaving the weight room, Eren and Reiner went to the court. Two other boys, who'd been there for some time, asked them to play a game of pick-up. They agreed. With height on their side, Reiner and Eren were pitted against Jesús and Phillip who had natural ability. Jesús was the shortest with an open face. Phillip had a fresh edge-up and a tattoo wrapping his inner forearm.

They checked. The game began.

When Phillip dunked on them, Reiner and Eren made sounds of utter pain. Eren hung his head, slack, fake-dead.

Phillip flung off the rim. It shook, released, blurring as it levelled. Phillip landed in a straddle, with a bright pink tongue stuck out. "Too much sauce," he said.

"That's too much sauce," Jesús said.

Eren came back to life, his head lifting. "What is you doing?" He smacked Reiner's gut. Reiner wheezed. "That Naruto-tattoo jit flew over your fat head. You let a weeb dunk on you, man."

"Weeb?"

"I will Sharingan yo' ass," Phillip said, and swiped his hand across his face as if he were masking off. "These reaction times too quick."

The teams checked again. Rubber pounded, hot and dangerous, on the concrete. Shoes squealed under muscled controlled speed. Jesús went up. This time, Reiner shut him out. Jesús flopped on his back and bounced off the concrete like elastic putty. He scrambled back to his feet, exclaiming something Reiner didn't understand. Jesús, who didn't think he'd be understood by anyone, had spoken in Spanish.

"Yeah. He's got some density," Eren said, understanding. Jesús was rattled slightly.

He turned, surprised, and spoke to Eren now. Reiner didn't know what was said, but Eren replied: "Jit. What'chu mean? That face is godly." Eren stretched out his hands, presenting Reiner's face. "Bask in it."

"If you know Spanish, why don't you speak it?" said Jesús.

"My Spanish is stupid."

"Nah. I bet your Spanish sounds good." Jesús switched to Spanish again.

"Nah." Eren stuck to English, shaking his head. "It's fucken trash."

Jesús's smile drooped. "Someone say that to you? They disrespect your Spanish?" Jesús waited. Eren didn't answer. "Ignore 'em. Speak it with confidence."

Eren only smiled, shaking his head, mute.

Jesús scoffed. "I hate that. I hate that more than anything. How they expect anybody to learn? I teach Phillip some Spanish and it sounds good. Right, Phillip?"

"_Puta_."

"See?" Jesús grinned, pleased. "I teach important things. Right, Phillip?"

"_Claro que si_."

"See?" Jesús was grinning wide. "Don't be self-conscious. Believe in yourself. You speak good Spanish, I can tell." He went in for some dap.

Eren smiled tautly. Tiny spasms broke across his mouth muscles. Jesús didn't notice this. They dapped. Another error in Eren's cognition surfaced. Invasive ideas and thoughts trundled across his brain, cutting clean surgical paths in his psyche.

# # #

Reiner lived in a mobile home. Mobile homes were an uncanny extradimensional kind of phenomenon. On the outside, they looked too small to live in. On the inside, it was a fully furnished house with a kitchen, a living room, a dining table, two bedrooms, a bathroom. The interior was seemingly too inclusive and spacious to fit inside its walls, as if, by stepping through the door, you had entered a hidden dimension folded in the seams.

Reiner poured Eren a cold cup of water in a model of Southern hospitality. Eren thanked him. He stood at the kitchen counter and drank. They had both shed their sweat-soaked shirts, feeling good and tired from the day. Reiner's hospitality had no off-switch, and he refilled Eren's cup and then took it when Eren was done and washed it and replaced it in the cabinet, and Reiner made sure the home matched Eren's ideal temperature, and did he need the restroom? was he hungry? was there anything at all Reiner could do for Eren?

"Relax, man," Eren told him. "Sit down and chill."

The door opened. The walls shuddered faintly. From out of the sun came a man who used to be a burly man. He wore a wife beater, old muscles now sagging off his frame. The strength and definition had deflated from his biceps with age. Skin loosely hung.

Still standing at the counter, Reiner jolted stiff. He smacked Eren's shirt to his chest, whispering, "Put your shirt back on," and yanked his own shirt over his head, wet. Eren did the same. It was unpleasant, drenched cold. Reiner's dad had a thumb of tobacco under his lip. It bulged his mouth and he spit into a plastic water bottle which held a half-inch of brown drool in it.

"Who's this?" he said.

"Eren Jaeger," Reiner said. "This is the guy that got Homecoming King."

"Ah." The man stuck out his hand. "I'm Reiner's birth father. You can call me Dennis." Eren pumped his hand. Dennis calculated the size and power of the handshake. A spurt of saliva dribbled down into the water bottle. "You know Hunter Thompson?" A pause. "He graduated last year."

"No sir," Eren said.

"Sure. His pa's got a plot a land out past Lake Verona. He and I went to school together. He lets me take Reiner out there and hunt a little. You ever shoot a gun, Eren?"

"No sir."

"Sure." Dennis nodded critically, his lip swollen around the tobacco. More drool oozed out of his mouth, filling the bottle. His teeth were soaked brown. "You should take him out there, Reiner. Let him get a feel for it. Every man should know how to shoot a gun." Then without saying anything more, Dennis walked past the kitchen, down the narrow hallway, into the master bedroom. Eren and Reiner were silent, listening for Dennis moving in the bedroom. They heard nothing. A dog barked viciously somewhere.

Wordlessly Reiner beckoned Eren to the front door. They stepped out into the sun.

"I don't mean to kick you out," Reiner said, his hands stuffed in his pockets. "But I didn't know my dad was going to be home this early." The sunlight ran into their wet shirts. Piles of people went about their day in the trailer park.

Eren got into his car and started it up. Reiner rapped the window with his knuckles. It went down. Reiner rested his forearms in it.

"Thanks for spotting me today," he said.

"Yeah. Hit me up whenever."

Reiner didn't back away, his forearms lodged in the window, keeping Eren from leaving. "About your Spanish," he went on, "I'm sure it sounds better than you think. I guarantee there's more people that want to hear it than people that want to cut it down."

Eren wondered at Reiner secretly.

"You want to know why I'm nice to you?"

Eren closed his lips, realizing he hadn't wondered at Reiner in secret. He sat up straight, gripping the wheel in one hand. "Nah. Forget it. I don't know why I said that."

Reiner laid his eyes across Eren's face. The little hairs on the back of Eren's neck quivered like antennae receiving a signal. Reiner's hand rose from the window. Eren watched it reach at him, going rigid in the driver's seat.

Reiner slapped Eren across the back of his neck and clamped down his fingers. Eren's shoulders hitched up around his ears as if they were hooked there. "You're like the moody little brother I never had," Reiner explained.

"Let go. Seriously, let go." Reiner let go. Eren's shoulders fell from the hooks. "What do you mean 'little brother?' We're the same age."

"Actually, I was retained in second grade," Reiner said. "That makes me a year older than you."

"A year's nothing." Eren's voice was odd and tight. "My parents are pretty chill if you want to come over next time."

"Yeah," Reiner said. He scratched his hair. They both did those fidgety movements with their hands, eyes looking everywhere but at the place they should be looking, anxious without knowing why. "My dad's kind of a dick."

"I don't know." Eren clapped on his sunglasses. "I just got a sense there was some tension." He turned over his shoulder and backed out and the oddness pulled off him like a gravity undone.

November

In the country club neighborhood, an old station wagon rolled off the side of the road into the grass and parked near a small pond. The engine cut. Armin got out, walked around to the passenger side, and held Grandpa Arlert as he stepped out into the grass.

"Grandpa," Eren said. He came over and hoisted the man's other arm. Grandpa Arlert wore a fishing cap, a fishing shirt, rubbery black tennis shoes. His eyebrows were rowdy and belligerent. Jets of the same kind of rowdy, belligerent hair lined the inside of his nostrils.

"Who's this good-looking fella, here? Can't be Grisha's boy. Let me look at you." Behind his glasses, Grandpa Arlert appraised Eren with his myopic moist eyes, like two telescopes projected from his head. He clapped both Eren's shoulders, once. He whistled. "Rock solid. You hate me now? Can't come see me every once in a while?"

"He had a girlfriend, remember?" Armin said.

"Ah." Grandpa Arlert flapped his hands, swatting at invisible gnats. "I see how it is. No time for this boring old geezer."

"No. That's not true," Eren said.

Grandpa Arlert had already moved on, using his telescopic eyes on Mikasa now. He brought her into a hug. He smelled of age and powder-skin and his lungs were like accordion bags, brassy and windy. Mikasa held him, aware of how old he was, aware of the footprints time was leaving on everybody. It made her ache and want to squeeze him tight.

"How are you, Grandpa Arlert?" she said.

"Don't get old. My bones are creaking. My vision's not like it used to be. And this old memory's slipping. Getting old is rotten, rotten, rotten."

Grandpa Arlert put his hand on Mikasa's back and they went to the four chairs lined up on the pond's bank. Fishing poles and bait and a small cooler waited in the grass. After baiting their hooks and casting their lines, Grandpa Arlert set his fishing pole in the pole holder and took out a bottle of cold root beer from the cooler. He twisted. Carbonation hissed. He drank happily, relishing this wonderful day, fishing with his favorite people again after growing old these last few years, missing his young people all the time. He set the bottle in the cup holder and replaced the rod in his hands.

Armin, Eren, and Mikasa held their poles, leaned back in their chairs. It was six o' clock. The sun piled itself on housetops. Shadows laid, long and diagonal, across green lawns.

Eren tilted forward. "Did you know Armin has a girlfriend now?"

"No, I don't." Armin looked at his grandfather meaningfully. "I don't."

"It's about time," Grandpa Arlert said. "I was beginning to wonder if you were a homosexual. Not that it would've mattered to me."

"Grandpa, no. I wanted to focus on school. I told you that."

"There's nothing wrong with being a homosexual. One of my closest friends was a homosexual. Good guy. Smart, like you. A little on the feminine side," he said. "Like you."

"Her name's Annie," Armin said, his jaw slacking a bit.

Eren and Mikasa laughed. Armin pretended them away, ignoring their amusement.

"Is this a real girl we're talking about?"

Eren and Mikasa laughed all over again. Armin kneaded his temple and sighed.

"Yes, Grandpa."

November

Like other wealthy families in town, Jean Kirstein lived on a lake and had a private dock housing a pontoon boat and twin jet-skis. The lake was smaller with few other houses on it. There was a high blue sky and a mild sun, not too close, not too far, the temperature just right. Behind the house, Armin and Annie walked along the beach. They didn't hold hands but walked quite close to each other. Under an umbrella, Ymir lounged in a beach chair. Her twists had been taken down. Now she wore her hair in a fro-hawk. The rest were playing a game of beach volleyball, three on three.

"Set me up, Eren." Mikasa passed the ball to him. Eren's hands lifted above his head. The ball flicked out of his fingers, floating in the air. Mikasa ran toward it. She bent her legs, tensed her thighs. She jumped, stretching all the way up her right side, muscles elongating, pulling. The ball was too high, out of reach. She fell, still reaching, fumbling at it. With her fingertips, she dinked the ball over the net. Jean dove in the sand. The ball went dead. The play ended.

"What was that?" Eren laughed at Mikasa. "You acted like you were gonna explode up." He demonstrated, squatting, arms swung back. Then he moved in a slow-motion volleyball spike— "And got like two inches off the ground."

"It's this sand." Mikasa kicked it.

"It ain't just the sand," Ymir said from her beach chair. "What'chu think's gon' happen with those twig legs?"

Six pairs of eyes examined Mikasa's legs.

"Set me again," she said.

Eren wiped the sweat from his palms. "Don't fug it up this time."

"You don't fug it up."

"_You_ don't fug it up."

Reiner served. The other side returned it. Mikasa stuck out her arms and guided the ball off her forearms, laying it in Eren's hands.

"Here, Eren." She raised her arm in a signal. For an instant, the ball was cradled in Eren's fingers then it floated out, no spin at all, sweetly hanging in the air. Mikasa got excited, waiting a little before releasing. She jumped and met the ball. Her palm connected. The ball sang over the net—and smashed down straight into Sasha's nose. Sasha clapped her hands over her face. Her eyes teared.

"Oh, shit." Eren ducked his head under the net. "You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm okay. I'm okay."

"Aren't you gonna apologize?"

"Why?" Mikasa said. "It's her own fault. All she had to do was put her hands up."

"You _drilled_ her in the _face._"

"Boy, that was nothing," Ymir said. "That hit was like a rose petal."

"What?" Mikasa snapped around.

Ymir was already grinning, framing her bright teeth. "Sasha's trash at receiving. Anybody else could've scooped that up, easy."

"Yeah? How about you sub in? Take Sasha's spot."

"I'm spectatin'." Ymir had brought along a small bottle of brandy and gulped from it. "_Ahhhh_." She smacked her lips.

"Do it quietly, then." Mikasa put her hands on her knees, her face hard and intense with competition.

"Ay-ee," Connie said. "Mikasa don't play. Let's go." He bowed up his arms, making his muscles stand out.

"I didn't know she was so competitive," said Reiner.

"Yeah," Eren said. "She's cutthroat and a horrible team player. That's why she's not on any school teams."

"That's not true," Mikasa said. "There's just nobody I like."

"Aw." Eren dragged a finger down his cheek like a dripping tear.

Mikasa called across the net: "Connie, switch with Eren. He's annoying."

Connie stayed where he was. "Nah. We good. They less aggressive over here."

Eren hit an imaginary wheel. "Swerve."

"Skir skir."

Connie and Eren made each other laugh.

"Time out." Mikasa waved in her team. Eren and Reiner walked to her. They ducked their heads together. "Ymir's right," Mikasa said, fatally serious about it all. "There was no power behind that hit. I'll focus on receiving. Reiner will be our offense."

"It's just a game, Mikasa," Eren said. "Dial it down."

Mikasa met his eyes. Her eyes were intense, fierce, full of heat and action. Eren opened his mouth, about to argue. Mikasa was already straightened, calling across the net: "Hey, listen. How about this," she said. "How about the losers get a penalty?"

Jean, Connie, and Sasha were interested. They chewed on it, standing in the sun in their T-shirts.

"What kind of penalty?" Jean said, curious.

"The Miss Valentine's Day Pageant."

The Miss Valentine's Day Pageant was a reverse beauty pageant that the National Honor's Society put on each year as a charity fundraiser. Many people thought it was social suicide. Eren was one of those people.

"That's wack," Eren said.

"Let's go-o-o," Connie said.

"Are you out of your mind?" Eren cried in soprano.

"Are you out of your mind?" Connie cried in even higher soprano.

"These stakes is stupid high."

"Just drop the ball in front of Sasha," said Mikasa. "It's a give-me game."

"Dang," Reiner said. "That's cold."

"For real." Eren decapitated himself with a slash of his thumbnail.

"Hold up." Jean stood at the net, mentally weighing the skillset of each team. "None of us on this side can receive. Your team's got an unfair advantage." His platinum hair was in highlight. He'd bleached the roots since homecoming. Now his hair was as bright as the beach sand.

In the shade, Annie and Armin stood next to each other, observing from the sidelines. Unexpectedly, Annie spoke out. "I can receive," she said. All six pairs of eyes flew to her.

"You can?" Jean said.

Annie nodded.

"Y'all flaggin'," Eren said.

Jean ignored him. "All right," he said. "Sub in for Sasha. Sasha, no offense."

Annie crossed into the court. Sasha started away.

"No, no. It's good." Sasha swung her hand back and smacked through Connie's palm. "Merc 'em."

"Yessir."

"Man, y'all flaggin'," Eren said again, louder. He was ignored by everyone. "If we lose," and he spat in the sand.

"We won't lose, Eren," said Mikasa.

She, Eren, and Reiner got ready on their side. On the other side, Jean, Connie, and Annie did the same. Mikasa, Eren, and Reiner had size and power. Jean, Connie, and Annie had speed and instinct. They studied each other through the net, calculating.

As Annie took her stance, Mikasa gauged the posture and positioning. Annie was bent low, weight shifted to the soles of her feet. She dropped into an evenly proportioned foundation, her hands out in front of her, ready. Then Mikasa knew.

"Did you used to play court volleyball?"

"I played varsity for four years," Annie said. The two girls fastened stares through the net. "I was a DS."

"Oh, that's great," Eren said. "That's really great." He pressed Mikasa under a glare. "I swear to God, if we lose this wack bet."

It took them twenty-five minutes to lose the bet.

"Oh-MY-god." Eren stared, bug-eyed, at the divot in the sand where Reiner had hit the ball out of bounds, losing them the game point. A moment: Eren lamented. Then he cut around to Mikasa, shouting, "I told you. I _told_ you. What'd I tell you?"

"It's not my fault we lost," she said.

"Yeah, we could've won if Annie wasn't a fucking libero or whatever."

"A DS. And how was I supposed to know that?"

"You know what? This is Karma biting us in the ass for your bad attitude."

"Bad attitude? If you hadn't shanked your passes—"

"WHAT?"

"All right, all right, all right." Reiner came between them. "It was a good game. We had fun."

"We _lost_," Mikasa said. "If you hadn't flubbed the ball so much, Annie wouldn't have been able to cover their whole side. You couldn't have made it any easier for her. All you had to do was connect your hand—" She swung her hand and clapped it to her other palm, "with the ball."

Reiner's eyebrows peaked on his forehead. He bumbled his mouth, speechless.

"_Ahhh_. I'm dead." Ymir laughed in her beach chair, not even tipsy yet, having a good time watching everybody fail. She grinned mockingly at her brandy. "These clowns," she said and threw back, amused by them all. Armin laughed too.

"Rematch," Mikasa demanded. "Best two out of three."

"No, thanks," Annie said. She walked off the court, her legs and arms sand-pasted, hair knotted and sand-frosted, joining the others on the sidelines.

"Nobody wants to play 'cause of your bad attitude. _Brat_." Eren pushed Mikasa by the shoulder. Beach sand cranked up around her stumbling feet. She caught her balance. Eren spoke earnestly through the net to Jean. They were face to face, one on each side. "Hey, that bet's a flop, right?"

"You stayed and played." Jean smiled viciously, his incisors like fangs.

"But Mikasa poisoned my team."

"Mikasa carried your team."

"Man, come on."

"Drink the Kool-Aid, bitch."

Eren jabbed his fingers in his own eyes. Reiner found the humor in all of it and gripped Eren by the back of the neck reassuringly. "Valentine's Day is three months away," Eren said. "What's the odds they'll forget?"

"The Miss Valentine's Day pageant's not that bad," Reiner said. "It's kind of fun."

Eren jabbed his fingers in deeper. "Your opinion doesn't count. You're on NHS."

# # #

Like other wealthy people in Lake Valley, the Kirstein's also had a twin set of jet-skis. Eren and Mikasa took one to the water. The lake was a mirror-surface, orange and dying with the sunset. Eren drove. Mikasa sat behind and held to his stomach. A wall of spray flared off the jets as he cut the steering, sharp, flying them across the November-chilled mirror-water. He levelled them off. They soared straight. Cold speed snuffed their ears.

"About that game," Mikasa shouted over the wind, "I'm sorry."

Eren turned his mouth, sidelong, shouting back: "Yeah, well, you're gonna be the one to walk me down that stage. And I get to choose your fit. I'ma make you look like a dead-ass clown."

"I don't know why I get like that," Mikasa said over the wind. "I haven't changed at all."

"Yeah. It's an ugly side of you. But I kind of like it, too?" Eren questioned himself. He tried to catch her eye. She evaded it, looking over his shoulder at the water ahead.

"Is it my turn to drive yet?"

The jet-ski whirred, slowing, and trolled to a stop. They switched positions. Now Mikasa took the steering and Eren put his arms around her. She gassed it. Eren cried out, startled, "What are you DOING?" catching himself against the seat. Mikasa wrenched the throttle, faster. Water screamed up behind the motor. Together, they skidded along a sunset ridge, riding fast across a dying sky.

November

There was a week off school for the Thanksgiving holiday. It was Thanksgiving Day and the Jaeger family reunited, as they did every year, at Carla and Grisha's house for lunch at 1:00 PM. They had the largest house and of the family, they were the only college educated people. Gathered together were the paternal grandmother, the maternal grandfather, the uncles and aunts and all the cousins from both sides. The whole family had blond hair, blue eyes, and spoke in long-voweled drawls. Eren spoke pleasantly to everybody, but much time he spent with the grandmother on his father's side, his _abuela_, who favored him above all the other cousins.

Eren went inside. Thanksgiving spreads floated delightful smells through the kitchen. He started to pass it, headed to the hall.

"Are you all right, Eren?" Carla said. She stood at the stove. She removed a thermometer from the oven baked turkey. Heat from the stove and pots had frizzled her hair into an eccentric wilderness.

"Yeah, why?" Eren said.

"You keep going to the bathroom. Is it your IBS?"

"IBS? I don't have IBS."

"But you were sick all those days," she said.

"Not from IBS. What the heck, Mom?"

"Well, what's the matter with you? Why do you keep going to the bathroom?"

"Are you counting or something? Is there a cap on how many times I can go to the bathroom?"

Eren continued and went into the hall and walked into the bathroom. Without turning on the lights, he locked the door and sat on the floor. He stared at the wall, breathing. His hands clenched. They unclenched. They clenched again, him staring at the wall in the dark, breathing.

For a few minutes, he talked inside his mind. His thoughts were telling him nasty things, like that he was worthless and despicable, and he was overcome by an unspecified sense of humiliation and guilt. With his fists still clenched, he tightened up all his muscles, summoned up all his blood, and held in his air. Then he let it all go without making any sound, exhaling. He rose and washed his face. He stood at the sink, his eyelids smashed together, and shook his head. He walked out.

This repeated a couple more times throughout the Thanksgiving lunch as the world fell apart in Eren's mind and he violently forced it back together again. Each time took a little bit longer than the last. He wondered if, eventually, he wouldn't be able to fix himself at all anymore.

On the outdoor patio, Eren's family talked and the food was set up and they formed a circle, holding hands, and prayed. Amen, they said. Then they made a line down the picnic table and served themselves different helpings of turkey, stuffing, cornbread, green beans, sweet potato, etc.

They sat as one family. Though it never felt like a union of any kind. Eren sat by his _abuela_ after helping her hoard her plate with food. She told him in Spanish how sweet and handsome he was while holding him by the hand. Eren had some of her in him and each time he appeared on her eye, she glowed with affection and pride. How she loved her sweet little miracle. Everybody began eating; and talking between their eating; and eating between their talking.

"So, Eren, do you have yourself a girlfriend?" It was Pawpaw talking now, chopping his thin lips on a corncob. Chemo reduced him from a man into a skeleton with ropy skin.

"Yeah," Eren said. And then he remembered. "No. I mean, no. Not anymore."

"Women are trouble," said his _abuela_. "You have to keep your eye on them or they take all your money. Stay away from gold-diggers."

"Were you a gold-digger, Grandma?"

"All women want money. Money and a clean home."

"Really? You weren't a very good gold-digger, then, Grandma. Grandpa had no money."

"That's because your grandpa used a dirty trick on me."

"What trick?"

"He got me to believe he was an interesting man. Men can talk for hours about nothing. He would talk for hours about everything. That's why I never got myself a rich man to live a comfortable life."

"Grandma."

"But that's all right. I have a clean home," she said, "and a pretty grandson."

"The last time I saw you, you had yourself a girl," Pawpaw said. "What happened to that loudmouth girl with the big—" Pawpaw's hands illustrated hills and valleys. Eren watched him molest the air and grope for a euphemism— "behind?" he said, at last.

"What?" Eren stared.

"You like them big girls. The ones that can barely get their britches on."

"I don't even know what you're saying." Eren stood up.

"Where you goin'?"

Eren sucked his teeth. He left and went into the house and found his mother in the kitchen. Carla was pouring glasses of sweet tea. "Your dad's a garbage human being," he said, as if he'd been holding his breath. "I swear to God, if he don't shut his mouth, I'ma bust. Want to know what he said?"

"Eren. Don't start this again. Can't we just have one civil Thanksgiving together?" She sat the jug on the counter. Her wild hair clung to her neck, damp. Sleep deprivation cut circles under her eyes.

"No." Eren thought of all the things he didn't like about his grandfather and cooked himself into a rage. "Your dad's offensive. He's racist. Every time I see him, I want to shoot myself."

"I know he's ornery and difficult. But try to get along with him. He's your family. Help me take these glasses outside."

"I don't care," Eren said. "And I don't care that he's dying." Eren knew even as his mouth was saying it that what he was saying would never be okay. Then he said it, regretting it as he did: _"I can't wait for him to be dead."_

Eren held his cheek in wonder as a fanged bite grew and gnawed through his face. Only after it was over did Carla and Eren understand what it was that had happened. They made sense of it in reverse, staring at each other in shock, each wounded by the other.

"Even if that's how you feel, how could you ever say that to me?" Carla gripped her right hand with the left, as if the right wrist were a snake. "He's my father. He raised me. You're here because I'm here and I'm here because of him."

"I know, mama. I didn't mean to say that." Eren held his cheek. He started to the front door.

"Eren, _Eren_—"

Warmth still gnawed at his face. His knees were like bone hinges, and hurt. It probably wasn't his knees hurting. The car engine shook and hummed. He put his foot down, turning his head. The frowning U-driveway went under the tires. Carla stood inside the front door, watching him under her cook-frizzled hair, holding against the frame, looking miserable. Her eyes were small and exhausted. The road rubbed the tires raw. Eren's body pulled to the right as the car burned out of the cul-de-sac.

As he drove, the ducts in Eren's eyes were engorged like they'd been building all night, for twenty nights, for months. That's why he was so tired because his body was working, storing up sadness during the night, getting no rest at all. But the ducts wouldn't open up. He could only ever be tired, sleep never giving him rest.

In twenty minutes, he was downtown.

On the streets, no other cars motored by. He sped around the town circle. Three homeless men slept on the public benches. The town's one prostitute whom everybody knew about but never talked about stood in front of a thrift shop. She waved when Eren drove past, smiling a putty unfilled mouth. She held up two fingers. Two dollar, she would toothlessly shout at any man nearby. _Two dollar._ That's what they called her when they deigned to acknowledge her existence.

Eren turned down an avenue and slowed in front of a deli. He parked. There were no cars anywhere. He opened the door. A bell jingled. On the other side of the cashier counter was Armin, half-bent, cleaning the counter, his face craned up, staring. No expression took as he watched Eren walk in.

"Hey," Eren said.

"Shouldn't you be having Thanksgiving with your family?" Armin rubbed his hands dry on a towel.

"When do you get off?"

"Eight."

"That's in five hours," Eren said.

"Yeah."

"Can I chill here till then?"

"Chill here," Armin said, "for five hours?"

"Yeah."

"I'm supposed to see Annie later."

"A'ight."

"But I can change plans."

"Don't you want to spend time with your girlfriend?"

"She's not my girlfriend." Armin came out from behind the counter. A broom was in his hand. "We're just friends."

"You still cappin' bout that?"

"It's the truth."

"Yeah, sure, okay. Have fun with your 'friend'."

"Yeah, no," Armin said. "Flaking's your whole personality."

There was a silence and some pondering. Eren pondered about Armin. Armin pondered about himself. The broom scraped the floor.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Eren said, finally.

"Nothing."

"No. Say what you got to say." Eren watched Armin as he used the broom on trash and dirt, collecting it into a pile. "Why you acting like a bitch?"

"Why are you acting like a douche?" Armin swished the broom over the floor, not looking at anything, his tone very calm and detached, as though he were making casual conversation with himself. He'd been carrying a clock in himself, he realized, and now time had come. "Mikasa keeps clinging to this idea we'll all be friends for the rest of our lives."

"You got beef? What's your problem? I came here to see you."

"Beef?" Armin held the broom away. He made a gesture of ironic outrage. "I don't know." He stared at Eren with an unreadable non-expression. Now that Mikasa wasn't with them, there was no mediator, no reason to suppress or dissimulate. Armin was resentful and injured, always burying it, secretly hurt, always feeling like he did more, like he cared more. A friendship like that disappointed and drained and made you feel more alone than being alone.

"When you started dating Noralis, I was dropped like it was nothing," he said. "And you know what? that's fine. I don't care. You drop me, I drop you. That's how that works. It's not a difficult concept to wrap your mind around. You can't act like nothing happened just 'cause you two split."

The broom swished the floor again. Armin knelt with a dust pan.

"I didn't drop you."

Dirt, straw wrappers, paper napkins and such hissed into the pan. "After you got with Noralis, you were embarrassed to be friends with me and Mikasa," Armin said, still calm, still casual, letting it out after all this time. "We were holding you back. We couldn't fit into your new life. I get it. It doesn't matter to me."

"I DIDN'T DROP YOU!"

Armin tensed, startled by sudden volume. He stilled to his marrow and his vision went out of focus. He felt himself becoming enraged, starting at the crown of his head crawling down until each cell in his body rattled.

"No?" Armin spoke even quieter now, the calmest he'd ever been. He stood. "You're just bros with all the guys I hate." His voice never wavered. He emptied the dust pan, enraged on the inside, injured by Eren, tired of trying not to feel it all the time. "Remember what they used to do to me in middle school? Remember the time they strangled me with a belt? They could've killed me, probably. I don't know. You know them better than I do. They're _your_ friends."

"What the hell? I'm not friends with those guys. Sometimes they're in my proximity. But that's it."

Armin shook his head in wordless amazement. "Get out."

"What?"

"Get out of here. I'm done listening to your bullgarbage."

"If you'd listen to me for a second."

"No."

"It's not what you think. Just hear me out."

"Stop." Armin jerked out his hands in a halt. "Why does everybody have to do everything your way one-hundred percent of the time?"

The two other employees nudged their heads from the break room. Armin folded his voice back in. He signaled at the other employees. Their heads ducked back into the break room.

"Fine," Armin said. "Since everybody has to do what _you_ want, I'm listening." Armin took a rag and a spray bottle of cleaning solution. He misted a table. He began to wipe it with the rag.

"Look. I didn't drop you. I never thought to myself, 'Armin's a loser so I'ma ghost the shit out of him for clout.' If you think that's what happened, that's not what happened." Eren pulled out a chair from a table. He sank into it. His face began to convulse and jerk like there were two expressions trying to fit on his skull at the same time.

"I never liked Nora's friends. And that's the truth. I know you and Mikasa never vibed with Nora. But if you knew what I knew, it might give some perspective. There's a lot about her people don't know. Stuff you'd think you'd be able to read. But you can't."

The shopkeeper bell was silent, hanging over the door. It was a dead day. The traffic lights changed on timed cycles. No cars came or went in the graveyard streets.

"I'm lucky," Eren went on. "I've always had good people in my life. You, Mikasa, my parents. But Nora's surrounded by awful people. And as I got to know her better, I wanted more than anything to do everything right 'cause everything else was wrong. It kind of took over my life."

Armin continued spraying tables and wiping them down, listening.

"I didn't mean to cut you off," Eren said. "It was like this tunnel vision. You know? Then one day something felt off and I looked around myself, and nobody's there except Nora. I'd been so focused on her that I neglected everybody else in my life. After that, I guess I started clinging to her 'cause she was all I had. Then at some point, I started neglecting her too, like everything else. Now I have nothing." He put his hand across his face. "And Nora hates me."

Armin put down the cleaning solution, the rag. He went to Eren and took the chair across from him. Spinning it around, he sat backward in it like he always did. "The other day in the hall, I had an unusual interaction with her. Usually she walks by me and pretends we're strangers. But the other day, she stopped to talk to me. That's unprecedented."

"What'd she say?"

"Nothing significant. She just asked how I was and asked about my grandpa. I thought it was a way for her to get to you, like, circuitously."

Eren said nothing.

"You don't really know how things are going to turn out yet. It's still too fresh." Armin got up and spun the chair back around. He returned to the cashier counter. "They make the cookies here from scratch. They're pretty good, if you want one."

"What kind is there?"

Armin ducked behind the glass bakery display. "Sugar cookie, chocolate chip, peanut butter." Armin trailed off, scanning the trays and labels. Then, just as casually, as if he were still reading off cookie labels, he said: "You don't have nothing, by the way. You have me and Mikasa. Even if I don't always act like it. There's also double chocolate chip and macadamia nut."

November

Eren sat against the headboard of Mikasa's bed. She watched him explore cyberspace on his phone. Blue light washed his face. It was 11 PM.

"Can I take a picture of you?"

"What was that?" he said. He was reading an article on his phone.

"Can I take a picture of you?"

"What? No. Why?"

"I want you to be my next art project. I need a picture of you."

"Absolutely not." The blue light winked out. His phone clicked. He blinked at her in the bedroom low lighting. "That's weird."

"It's color pencil. I think your portrait would look nice in color pencil." She pictured all her colored pencils lined up across the table with their silky sharpened tips. Twenty pigments falling onto the empty page like powder, blending into the paper, soaking into the pluralistic hues of Eren's skin.

Mikasa could tell Eren had slept a lot during the day. His hair was sleepy. His eyes were sleepy. He radiated sleepy heat.

"Do I have to?" he said.

"No," she said.

"All right. You can take it," he said. "Did you want to take it here?"

"You don't have to do it," she told him. "I can think of something else."

"It's fine."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah."

"All right, if you're sure." Mikasa paused and gave him another chance to reject. He didn't. "Be still," she said.

Mikasa aimed her phone camera. Eren's picture moved with the slight motion of her hands. She let it down again. "Is it okay if I position you?"

Mikasa put her hands on his face and tilted him one way. He let himself be tilted. Then she tilted his face the other way, him allowing it. Then she tilted his face back again, leaning his hair on the headboard. She told him not to smile or look at her, to rest his face. She didn't want him to do anything with it, to let it fall like a blanket, with only an outline of what lay shrouded underneath it. He did this. Mikasa tapped the camera button.

A burst of photos appeared in Mikasa's photo library. She swiped through them, watching the slight stop-motion movement of the pictures as they tried to express a fraction of animation and life, playing it in a loop, compressed into a couple seconds.

"What do you think?" Mikasa turned her phone around. She loved all the pictures.

"I hate all of them."

Mikasa's finger swiped through the pictures and they came to life briefly, like broken shards. Car lights beamed past her window and bulged her walls with ribbons of darkness. Mikasa put her hands in her lap.

"I wish you could see yourself the way I see you."

Eren couldn't see it, of course, because he was on the wrong side of whatever it was that divided people from each other. A mirror, a lake, a bucket of water. Perspectives, dimensions—_aloneness._ Only the individual could see as the individual saw. And if the individual was self-effacing, they saw only what they themselves did, and that was it. Nothing more.

"You and Reiner are too nice to me," Eren said, seeing what only he could see, on his side, alone.

"I didn't know people could be _too_ nice," Mikasa said, seeing what only she could see. Neither person saw what the other could see nor could they imagine what the other person saw, and this made it impossible for them to understand each other.

"Your degree of niceness doesn't match what I do to earn it," Eren said. "It's disproportionate."

This, Mikasa still didn't understand, even after Eren tried to explain. "You don't have to earn niceness," she said. "We're nice to you because we want to be. Is that a hard thing for you to accept?"

"I don't know. Probably."

"I feel like somebody else has said something similar to me before." Mikasa felt at the thought, the memory. It was barely an impression. She took her hand away. "I have a question for you. Do you think abuse victims deserve to be abused?"

"Might as well just make your point. There's only one right answer."

"My point is," Mikasa said, "people don't earn cruelness, and they don't have to earn kindness. It just is. That's the way I see it."

The light laid low. The ceiling fan circled leisurely. The house sat in silence; Mikasa's parents had gone to bed an hour ago.

Mikasa added quietly: "But even if people had to earn kindness to get it, I still think you'd deserve all the kindness in the world."

Mikasa and Eren dropped their eyes away from each other, looking anywhere except across the bed. Eren scratched at his hair. He did those involuntary restless movements people did when they were feeling awkward or self-conscious or shy, not knowing what to do with themselves in a restless silence.

Mikasa handed Eren a sheet of origami paper. The paper was new. It was like fabric with metallic paints in the designs. Facing each other, crossed-legged, Mikasa coaxed a crane from her paper while Eren commanded a crane from his. They traded and, in their cupped palms, held each other's creations, proud of them.

They smiled. Without knowing it, they acted like mirrors, unconsciously doing as the other did, sitting on the bed, facing each other. The lights strung across Mikasa's back wall gently washed a warm radiance over the room.

"I've been practicing the piano." Mikasa cradled her hands on each other. "I'm still so rusty. Levi said I should play at the nursing home to get my volunteer hours done."

"You haven't finished those?"

"You have?"

"Yeah. I was a volunteer lifeguard and swim coach."

Inwardly Mikasa panicked.

"Don't worry. You still have time," Eren said. "But the longer it takes you to get them done, the more scholarships you'll miss. You should probably take Levi's advice."

"I don't like playing for other people."

"Go to The Oaks, take a look around, then try to say that again." He gave her a look like he knew. And knowing, he did.

"You don't understand."

"Maybe not. But how else are you going to get your hours done?"

He held her crane and he held her eyes. Ten minutes later, he went home.

* * *

a/n:

There will be chapters December, January, and February, then 3 different versions of the end, each one taking up a chapter, I think. so... 6 more chapters, maybe?

warning manga spoilers sorta?

My volume 31 came in the mail this week. They fixed Eren's wacky eyes in that panel where he's looking at Mikasa and asks her **_that_** question and she's all shook like aslkdjfhalskjdfh keyboard _smash _


	10. December

a/n: 9k words

* * *

December

The sun set earlier, nights grew longer. Darkness poured down from the sky. In the front of the house next to the Jaeger's, a van sat in the driveway. Men came in and out, wearing thick boots and gloves. For five days, Eren saw this out his window. Sometimes an elderly woman with miserable eyes came out. One afternoon, Carla and Grisha spoke gently to her for a while. That night, Carla made a casserole and had Eren take it to her.

It was Thursday and still the van sat, men going in and out with gloves and boots. Eren woke up thirty minutes early to get to Orange Blossom Terrace and pick up Armin. They went to school together. When they made it to campus, Armin carried a coffee for Mikasa and a latte for himself. They walked across the senior parking lot, both wearing lined jackets.

"Starbucks is some bougie ass," Eren said. His sunglasses flashed, like two suns in miniature.

"You said Starbucks. Not me."

At the gate, they showed their student I.D's. The school resource officer let them in. They turned and walked toward the back of the school. The art building came into view.

As they wove through clumps of students, voices floated past, whispering. They seemed to close on Eren, like small flapping creatures with quiet wings, gnawing holes in his sweater.

_—Why's he always acting so emo? What happened to him? — I'll tell you what happened: He got a little bitch in him — Somebody need to tell him — Pussyboy. Gay-ass ni—_

The coffee cups gave warmth to Armin's icy hands. Breath made white puffs in front of their faces. Eren had been watching out of the corner of his eye as Armin studied the lines in his face.

"What?" Eren finally turned his head.

"You look tired. Do you want this coffee?"

"That's for Mikasa."

"Yeah, but you look like you need it. Besides, I don't really want to give it to her."

"Why?"

"She uses coffee to stave off hunger."

"What are you talking about?"

"You can't tell me you haven't noticed."

"Noticed what?"

Armin stopped walking. Eren stopped walking. They looked at each other, breathing out warm vapor. Eren said, as if he'd known all along: "All right. Let's say you're right. Let's say she's starving herself on purpose. It's not like she's verging on the brink of death or anything."

"Should we wait for it to get to that point?"

"No. That's not what I meant. It's just— Do we have any right to tell her what to do with her life? She can do what she wants. It's her choice."

"But her choices aren't good for her."

"If somebody chooses to do something, there's nothing you can do about it."

"What? How can you say that? We're her friends."

"I know. I _know_. I know that." Eren seemed suddenly angry with himself. "People can't change people. Not even friends."

"Why are you talking like that? Where's all this coming from?"

"People are in charge of themselves. That's all I'm saying."

Armin began walking again. Eren did too. "Sometimes people's ability to make rational choices gets distorted, and under normal circumstances, they wouldn't have made the choices they did if they could still think clearly."

Eren opened the door to the art building. He held it and Armin went in, turning full around, waiting. Eren went in too. They walked together.

"There's something I want to do for Mikasa," Armin said. "Do you have any plans for lunch?"

# # #

The silk tips of pencils rubbed color onto smooth canvas paper. There were hushed voices under the orchestral covers of contemporary songs playing quietly from the teacher's desk. Giovanni slanted toward Mikasa's side of the table. She leaned to hear his frail voice.

"That's Eren." He pointed at the photo on her side of the table.

"Yes. Have you seen him today?"

Giovanni nodded his careful philosophic nod.

"Eren and I have been friends for nine years. We met when we were in third grade."

Giovanni leaned. He whispered, "Do you have a handshake?"

"No," Mikasa said. "Maybe Eren and I should have one. What do you think?"

Slowly, with much thought and care, Giovanni moved his head side to side.

"No?" said Mikasa. "Why not?"

"Only me. Eren is my best friend."

"Oh. I see. I won't infringe, then. Did you decide what you're going to do for your colored pencil project?"

He showed her a National Geographic clipping of a wolf.

"That's a good picture. I'll get you some canvas paper and a ruler."

# # #

When it came for their lunch time, Armin, Eren, and Mikasa went off campus for food. Eren drove. The town's Dairy Queen was an aged building with the pre-2000's logo; the inside confined, booths mashed along the wall.

Armin ordered three hamburgers and three orders of fries and three milkshakes.

"Milkshakes? It's cold out," Eren said.

"I like cold things when it's cold." Armin fished out his wallet. He took a card out.

"Debit or credit?"

"Debit."

"Wait." Eren groped his own pockets.

Mikasa put a light touch on Armin's shoulder. "I don't need anything."

"It's been a while since we've eaten like this together," Armin said, knowing what he was doing. "Just let me pay. I want to." Then he added, still aware of what he was doing, "I'll pick up some extra hours. It's not a big deal." Armin slid his card into the reader.

"Wait, here. I have cash." Eren thumbed through the bills in his wallet, unaware of what Armin was doing.

"Don't worry about it." Armin caught Eren's eyes, communicating. It took a moment for Eren to realize.

"All right." Eren put his wallet away. "I got us next time."

Armin took the receipt and they sat at the corner booth. They shrugged off their jackets and settled in. All the other tables and booths were empty. The Christian radio station played above them. Eren dipped a fry in his chocolate milkshake. Armin had strawberry. Mikasa, vanilla. Like they had done since third grade, their arms reached across the table, over each other's hands, scooping their warm fries in each other's milkshakes. It was a sublime balance of sweet and salty, hot and cold.

When they were finished, they sat in the afterglow, preparing themselves for the rest of the day. Then, satisfied and full, they went back to school in Eren's car.

December

Reiner demonstrated how to hold and shoot a hunter's shotgun. A beer bottle exploded. Quiet came and engulfed the forest. The microscopic hair cells in their ears trembled and heard the shot long after the smoke-smell faded. Reiner rested the gun.

"My neighbor killed himself," Eren said, not knowing why he was telling Reiner about it. "He was in his seventies." Eren put two fingers under his chin and pulled an imaginary trigger. His throat fell back. "Blew his brains out."

"Come on, Eren. Why would you say it like that? It's vulgar."

"It's a vulgar way to die. It's going to take them a month to clean that shit up. His wife's left all alone in that house."

"That's awful."

"What was he thinking?" Eren said. "He was a cancer survivor. He suffered through all this chemo and racked his body with radiation. It was in his spine. But he pulled through. It was like a miracle, they said. Everybody celebrated how heroic he was; how strong of a fighter he was. Then after four years of being cancer-free, he decides to kill himself," Eren said. "Four years," he said. "Why?"

They looked at the woods, not thinking about the woods.

There were the animals and insects and the subtle constant movement of the trees living.

Reiner handed Eren the gun.

"What happened to that fight in him?" Eren said. "How could he beat cancer but not—whatever it was that got him?"

They thought about mortality. They thought about backbones rotted with cancer; suffering deteriorating bodies; the agony of radiation.

"At what point does being alive feel worse than having cancer?" Eren said.

He set up and homed down the sight. A blast went off. The butt kicked back into his cushioned shoulder. Glass flew apart.

"Nice shot," Reiner said. Eren opened the gun and snapped in another round. "I don't know, man," Reiner said. "Maybe it was his age. Maybe he was getting senile or something. You know?"

"Yeah, maybe, I don't know. I'll tell you what, though. If I ever decided to kill myself, I'd never do it with a gun."

"Aw, God. That's not even right."

"What? I'm just saying. He left a huge mess. There's blood everywhere. It's like somebody threw paint all over the place." Eren set up again, peering down the sight. "His poor wife. Can you imagine walking into your living room and seeing that?" He shook the image from his head. Deep down, a nasty jealousy flirted with his consciousness. He bit his teeth together. "_Shit_."

December

Under crisscrossing lines of bare light bulbs, young people loitered around Stonewashed. They all wore dark clothes with knots of piercings in their skin, tattoos and wild hair colors. Eren and Mikasa passed a large girl with black-dyed hair, the blond showing at the roots, in a black tank top despite the low temperature. She'd nicked the word FAT into her upper arm and, bright pink, it'd crusted into a scab-tattoo. Eren turned his head, eyes locked on the cuts with an expression that did nothing to disguise the contempt he felt as he and Mikasa wove past her to the table where Armin and Jean were already seated.

"Did all these people crawl out of the gutters?" Eren said. "I don't recognize any of them."

"A few of them are in my art class," Mikasa said.

"That's my ex." Jean pointed vaguely.

"Who? Where?" Eren scanned the crowd.

"That girl with the red hair."

"You dated an emo chick? Why didn't I know this?"

"You went ghost for like two years. There's some stuff you missed." Jean motioned. "Can you guys sit on that side? It'd be great if she didn't see me. She's crazy psycho." Eren and Mikasa sat across from Jean, blocking him from view.

Soon they were all present: Eren, Armin, Mikasa, Jean, Connie, and Sasha. Ymir had declined when Mikasa invited her. 'I don't screw around with cops,' she explained as if Mikasa were supposed to know.

"Jean almost fits in here," Sasha said.

"Hah," Eren said.

Jean leaned onto the back two legs of his chair, closed inside a black leather jacket, his hair almost metallic and molded on top of his head with conscientious attention and love.

"Except he's the rich pretty boy version. It's like he stepped into Gucci, found a black leather jacket, and went, 'yeah, that looks right.'"

"Is that supposed to be an insult?" Jean dusted off the shoulder of his jacket. "I just do it better."

Eren made his face ugly, lifting his nose high, and copied Jean and dusted off his shoulder, making it ugly and sarcastic. Armin and Connie snickered.

"You just do it faker," Sasha said.

"Who cares what you think?" Jean said. "You got a rat's nest attached to your head. And when are you going to fix that gap in your teeth? Thhhhhh—" He pushed his tongue to his teeth and made a mocking lisp.

Sasha's hands flung out and Jean ducked, protecting his hair. "No, no, stop. I was kidding. Don't. Don't—"

"You're more of a girl than I am. It takes me five minutes to get ready."

"That's why you look like a garbage bag. No, no, _no-o-o-o—_" Sasha's hands went into his hair and scrambled it up. Jean mourned and touched experimentally at his head, feeling the damage. "Dammit, Sasha."

Sasha, very pleased with herself, stood up. "I'm going to get us all some coffee," and went inside.

Right as the door closed, a whine of ready instruments whirred from the sound system. Then it all crashed down. Guitars roared. Drums thrashed. Annie was the guitarist, wearing a plaid skirt and shredded tights, her blond head bowed, whamming out deep distortions.

The music broiled the crowd into a volatile kinetic stew.

At the table, Eren grabbed his chest as if his heart had clenched into palpitations. But it wasn't his heart. It was laughter he was grabbing at. Eren pointed at Armin, mouthing the word 'girlfriend' and 'metal head,' and grabbed his moving chest. He laughed at how funny the band was and the people were, laughing with the obvious contempt he felt.

The singer shouted into the mic:

_I lost myself and became someone else, standing on the edge of reality,_

_I couldn't let you love me from the start,_

_I've lost my sanity, my sanity_

Eren snarled and bopped his head. Connie and Jean laughed with him. The band and everybody in the crowd were a fantastic joke. Mikasa and Armin caught each other's eyes and knew what the other was thinking. Eren and Connie banged their heads, faces warped into deep snarls, satirizing the others around them, making themselves laugh, making each other laugh. Laughing at the people in the crowd most of all.

_I dreamed of taking my own life or you wanted to take mine,_

_They said in time that it'd be all right,_

_But if only they knew, _

_I lost my fucking mind_

Connie sliced his wrists with an invisible razor. Eren pretended to tighten a noose around his neck and pull. The joke was no longer funny and Jean wrenched around in the chair, ashamed of the other two. He, Armin, and Mikasa angled away, watching the band.

_Glass houses we built and sharp stones we've thrown_

_It all fell apart, Can we still find our way home?_

_We only brought this on ourselves, _

_Now we'll never make it on our own_

The music slowed and deepened. The crowd slowed. The drums crashed in a slow profound beat like a gong. Eren and Connie went quiet and took their eyes off each other, putting them on the band up front.

The crowd was dragged along in a trance. The singer put out his hands like a puppeteer and led them in a slow sleepwalking sway, necks slack, heads rolling, bodies possessed by a spirituality, a religiosity, moving in a soup of intoxicated trembles.

At this part of the song, Annie took off her guitar and handed it to a boy who flung the strap over his head and took over. Then she slipped into the intoxicated crowd, moving out of sight. People in the crowd didn't even notice her, blind, waves of slow movement pulling their bodies one way then the other. Annie reappeared close to where Mikasa and the others were sitting and headed straight to Armin. She gave him a pair of earplugs. Then she turned and disappeared again. Armin mashed the earplugs in.

The drums woke up and resurrected the crowd. Possessed compelled bodies formed a circle around Annie. The beat was rising. The crowd moved sharper, matching it, thrashing into an agitation. In the middle, Annie had a mic with her and her mouth opened and miles of air flew into her lungs and they watched, and the guitars quieted, and the music quieted, and the people in the crowd stilled. Everything waited. Silence engulfed them all as Annie took in miles of air. Then, all at once, she let it out and screamed—

Eren and Mikasa flung their hands over their ears. The crowd broke into a violence. The guitars whammed out hard heavy chords.

_SAVE US. _

All around Annie, the mangle of bodies boiled and whipped themselves together in a hysterical rage, harder than before, slinging themselves around, as if they wanted to break their own limbs off. The earth was crumbling, shaking them. In the middle of it, Annie bent back at the waist, face uplifted, screaming. She vibrated, her veins swollen, as an unfathomable force and terror channeled through her in a soul-deep possession.

_SAVE US._

_SAVE US_

_RIGHT NOW_

_SAVE US._

It was like being hit by a lightning bolt as something of the world's terrible energy poured into their pipes and rolled through them. The hair stiffened on their arms. Their hearts picked up in their chests and they were overwhelmed by an adrenal hyperclarity. Eren jerked his hood over his head.

The possession went on, Annie screaming into the night, throwing her voice above them all, into the cold answerless space and the cold indifferent stars spinning around the earth, about to roll over everybody everywhere, crushing them into dust, them furious with it all, them hating it all, hating the glass houses they lived in, which were only their bodies and would break under the accumulating pressure of time, as the seconds became minutes, became years, became centuries. They'd blow away, forgotten, over millennia until the next mass extinction would wipe out all life on Earth, and start over again like it'd been doing since the beginning. They were nothing. Nothing.

Red and blue lights burst into the parking lot. Dark uniforms and the glint of badges moved in the night. Flashlights beamed at the crowd. The funnels of light caught panicked black eyes like rabbit eyes fleeing a predator.

_It's not too late—_

_It's not too late—_

_Is this all just a dream?_

_Lay me down six feet deep._

_We're only born to die._

The instruments went dead. Sirens rose above the cooling instruments. Those sitting at the table were all quiet, their marrow still vibrating with some tragic nameless energy. Eren sat, covered in his hood, his arms crossed, hard, on his chest. Armin removed his earplugs.

The red and blue lights oscillated. They could feel their own hearts beating warm gushes of blood. They felt their own bodies living and dying at once. They felt the hair on their skin buzzing.

They came here, not understanding. Now they began to feel it moving inside them, shuffling up their thoughts and feelings. Understanding weighed on Eren. It had him shaking on the inside and he held his arms, crossed, collecting his collapsing frame together.

Sasha came out of the coffee shop, carrying a tray of drinks.

"Here's your coffee," she said, putting the tray on the table. "Inside there's a bunch of artwork done by people from our school. I saw one Ymir did."

"That was cold," Connie said. "You missed it, Sasha."

"I heard it inside. It sounded like vomit."

"It was decent," said Jean. "For that genre. If you've never listened to it before, there's an acquisition period."

"I can fuck with it," Connie said. "Think it's on Spotify?"

"When'd the police get here?"

December

A mysterious sheet of notebook paper had manifested, originless, apparently, passing through the underground networks of the senior class. At lunch, at the diamond-latticed lunch table outside, Eren took out his phone. He put it on the table for them to see. Armin, Mikasa, Connie, Sasha, and Jean surrounded him. They watched a video play.

The video showed the mysterious sheet of paper, which none of them had seen in person but had heard plenty about. It was an Anti-Superlatives list with categories and names written down in a patchwork of anonymous handwritings.

Big Booty Betty:

Simpest of Simps:

Nasty ho:

Closet homos:

Biggest fake:

Most likely to shoot up the school:

On Eren's phone screen in the video, the list was scanned down and then the camera stopped on his name. Then it cut away to a clip of him and Reiner walking across the senior parking lot to prove that he was precisely what the list said he was.

"It creeps me out." Eren shivered and scrubbed his arms. "I always had this feeling that eyes were watching me. Now I know it was more than paranoia."

"Go back to the beginning," Jean said. "Look at the hands holding the list. It's pretty obvious who that is."

"Look at them nails," Connie said. "That is some basic white girl shit. She's even wearing brown boots. Way to be the stereotype."

"I can't tell who it is," Eren said. "A lot of girls have that style."

Mikasa leaned in closer, looking harder at the phone screen. She thought for a minute.

"Historia," Mikasa said. "She's in my art class. I recognize the rings."

"Yeah," Jean said. "I could tell right away."

"Who?" Eren searched for a face in the empty air. "Is she the girl that got Homecoming Queen?"

"Yeah."

"But why? I've never talked to her a day in my life."

"Look. She's on the list too." Armin pointed.

"Biggest fake," Connie read. "Why's that one so accurate, though?"

"Connie, that's mean," Sasha said.

"She exposed herself when she started talking about helping the poor black kids in Africa and advertising that missionary trip she's taking after graduation. She did that all on her own. The White-Savior Complex is strong and she shoved it in our faces. It's about time somebody called her out."

"Eren, are you okay?" Mikasa lowered her head to look him in the face.

"Yeah. It's just—" He stretched his lips back over his teeth— "Don't these creeps have anything better to do?"

They were all dying the slow death of boredom. Some of them were going crazy. Some of them became obsessed. They were either going to destroy each other out of boredom. Or they would destroy themselves from having nothing else to do.

"Some things on that list might almost have a grain of truth," Jean said. "But closet homos? That comes straight out of the middle school handbook. I haven't heard anybody older than twelve say that shit. There's no way people will take it seriously."

The bell rang. Students wormed around, creaturely, scattering to class. They had four and a half minutes.

Whether people believed the rumor or not, people acted on it and used it as a gateway to lie and entertain each other in the rural little-to-do town, dying the slow death of boredom, bored to death by everything except each other. The video circulated and storms of rumors unsettled the status quo as the names on the list became targets. A kind of ominous violence lurked everywhere.

That day Reiner went ghost.

December

After school, in the gymnasium, the basketball boys gave Mikasa an up-down and groped her with their eyes. One boy tugged at his full bottom lip with his teeth, scoping Mikasa in a way that let her know she'd caught his interest and met his sexual tastes.

"Ymir, can I talk to you?"

The boys gestured and spoke in a secret stealthy language to each other, eyes homed darkly on Mikasa. Ymir followed Mikasa to the door. Ymir walked slow, as if the rest of the world could wait on her. And it should wait on her. And it would wait on her for however long she wanted it to wait.

They stepped outside the gym. Ymir crossed her arm. Her biceps were firm, stout knots from throwing the ball up. At school, Ymir was careful, maintaining an unreadable non-expression.

"Can you tell Historia to do something about that video?"

Ymir leaned back against the wall. "She didn't know it was gon' spread like that. It's outta her hands now."

"She shouldn't have posted it in the first place. Why would she do that?"

"Everybody's got a side to the story." Ymir twirled a curl in her hair, thinking, turning the thoughts over in her mind. "She didn't mean for it to be like this. It was a mistake."

"But I don't understand why."

"It's complicated. But I can tell you she did what she did 'cause she's scared."

"Of what?"

Ymir stopped twirling her hair, her muscled arms folded on her chest, her face an unbreakable stone wall. "Of me."

Behind the closed doors, inside the gym, shoes screamed on the court. The basketball beat violent throbs and went silent. The boys' voices rose with excitement and dread. Then the ball fell against the ground again, beating the court, blazing and alive.

# # #

After the boys' basketball practice, Ymir drove across the street to an arena where the cheerleaders would sometimes practice during the off-season. Ymir waited in her car for the girls to come out. When they did, Historia was wearing tight little shorts and Ymir watched Historia's thighs move as she walked across the grass parking lot. Ymir checked her own image before flagging Historia's attention. Historia turned her head right and left, and waited until a group of girls entered a single car and pulled away. Then Historia stealthily approached Ymir.

"Historia—"

"People were starting to talk about me," Historia explained, already knowing what Ymir was going to say. "The girls, the baseball team. I wanted to get them off my back. I wasn't thinking."

"People talk about it 'cause it's a secret. When you're out, things is less amusing for these fools."

"Ymir. I can't come out. Not here."

"I can understand that. But your words and your actions has consequences. That's what it means to have clout. You're responsible for your status. And at the end of the day, you always got a roof over your head and the skin on your bones. That's a lot more than some of us."

"The best anybody can say is that it's a rumor."

"People was only whispering before. Now you've stirred up conversation."

"I didn't mean to. It's only a rumor. Everybody knows Eren's not like that. Look at his girlfriend. She's—"

"Ay." Ymir slammed Historia down with a look. Historia compressed her lips and caught the rest.

Ymir put a finger to her mouth. "Being a professional secret-keeper isn't easy." Ymir let the stone wall of her face come apart. Underneath she was gentle and vulnerable. "You're the only person I ever trusted. Don't let me down. That's all I came to say."

December

The cafeteria noise was at dangerous decibels. They couldn't hear each other without shouting. Eren, Mikasa, Connie, and Jean waited in the lunch line to purchase a tray of cafeteria food.

"Giovanni said you're his best friend the other day," Mikasa told Eren.

"Want to know what he told me the other day?" Eren waited, but he didn't wait long enough for Mikasa to respond. "He told me you're his girlfriend."

"What?"

Eren enjoyed the look on her face.

"It's not funny. What should I do?"

Eren enjoyed this even more. "What do you mean? He just likes you. People get crushes. What did you expect? A pretty girl who's sweet and unconditionally supportive? Of course he was going to fall for you."

At that moment, a commotion broke out in the cafeteria. In the lunch line, along with hundreds of others across the cafeteria, Mikasa, Eren, Jean, and Connie snapped their faces to one of the long tables. Two girls were about to fight. People sprang out of their seats and surged closer.

"Lil' skinny-ass white skank. You got shit to say? You got shit to say? Open your mouth and fucken say it."

Noralis ripped at Historia's blond hair in her fists.

"No. No." Historia wriggled, clawing protectively at her scalp. Noralis dragged her by the hair, hauling her off the bench. Historia's legs flung under her dress like a struggling toddler's.

A baseball player shoved Noralis away.

"Get your nasty hands off her, bitch."

Sitting along the table, baseball players scowled at Noralis with disgust and contempt.

"Don't you have a dick to suck?"

They started to spit insults at her. A few began to bark like dogs. They barked at her and laughed with the contempt they felt because she was so disgusting and repulsive. One boy flicked food off his fingertips. Noralis snarled and cussed at them. They laughed harder and barked louder, pleasuring in it more the angrier she became.

"Nasty bitch."

"Ghetto skank."

"Fat-ass ho."

Noralis convulsed, heaving, in a powerless rage, hands shaking in small hot fists. Then without knowing what he was doing, Eren was there, taking Noralis by the shoulders, moving her away. Baseball players rose robotically from the long cafeteria table. Phones emerged. Record buttons were pushed. A baseball player stood in their way.

People surrounded and swarmed. Phones filmed. Eyes watched from their screens.

"You can sit back down," Eren said, automatically moving Noralis behind him.

"Bitchboy."

"Bitchboy."

"He a little bitchboy ass."

A couple baseball boys tugged at pretend boners and shot invisible semen at him.

Eren started to jostle past, taking Noralis with him.

It was something in the way Eren carried himself that made the boy swing. It wasn't a fist that connected. An open palm popped Eren across the jaw.

All along the table, baseball players fell to laughter.

"B-i-i-i-tch."

Eren licked his lip. A rash of fingers burned on his cheek. Mikasa, Jean, and Connie sucked air into their guts.

"Fight him, Eren," Noralis shrieked. "Fuck this boy up."

Eren's arms half-rose. He didn't move to fight. He stretched up on his toes, straining his neck away. Hands made vicious flat-skinned whaps. Eren backed into the opposite table. The baseball players spewed laughter through the holes in their faces.

"Fight, Eren. _Fight_ him. You're better than his punk-ass."

"What's he doing? Is he trying to run away?"

"Aha-ha-ha—"

Jean and Connie threw their arms between the two boys. They held the baseball player away, shoving him off. Eren watched Jean and Connie bash the boy backward and put distance between everybody. When they stopped moving, the boys gauged one another.

"Back off." Jean held up a hand. "Back off. I'm serious."

One of the baseball players was already standing up, starting to move silently toward them.

"Sit down," Jean said. "I'm not playing."

The boy came forward, not stopping.

"Want to go?" Connie stalked up to the table to meet him. He beat a fist to his own chest. "Let's go. I don't give a fuck—"

The side cafeteria doors crashed open, slamming off the walls. The dean of students charged in. An SRO jounced in after. His hand was flexed around his utility belt.

"Y'all break it up, now," the dean of students demanded. "You tell me what's going on here. Speak up."

The cafeteria was silent. It was the silence that always followed adults invading student matters. Then a voice came from an unidentifiable somewhere: "We ain't snitches."

"All right. Okay. That's all fine. You don't have to snitch," the dean said. "If nobody wants to talk, I'll decide for myself what happened."

His stony little eyes pinballed from boy to boy. A phone was still lifted, recording. The small hard eyes locked on it and he approached, as though reeled by an unseen line, eyes never moving from it, and plucked the phone away. He unceremoniously dropped it into his pocket.

"Come with me." He decided to take the baseball player who had slap-boxed Eren around. Hundreds of eyes slid to the door, following the dean and the boy. The eyes slid back. The SRO had unhitched a pair of handcuffs from his utility belt.

"Put your hands behind your back."

A moment went by as they all tried to figure out who he was talking to.

"You. Hands behind your back."

"Me?"

"Yes, you. It's you I'm looking at."

It was Eren.

"But I didn't do anything."

The SRO started to move, about to force Eren into a restraint. Eren twisted his arms around and allowed the SRO to arrest him. The cuffs closed on his wrists.

"Whoa. Hold on," Jean said. "He didn't do anything. There's video proof. Why are you arresting him? It was that other guy they just walked out. If you were going to arrest somebody, that should've been it. What are you doing?"

"Stand back. Unless you want to join him."

"No sir." Connie stepped away, palms raised. "There's no need for that, officer, sir. We good."

"We are not good," Jean said. "He didn't do _anything_—"

The SRO levelled Jean with a steady gaze.

"Shut up, man. Shut up." Connie held his hands up, avoiding eye contact with the deputy. He tried to transmit an unspoken warning to Jean. A moment passed, the officer looking at Jean, deciding; Jean looking right back; Connie trying to transmit warnings silently.

Finally, the SRO began to lead Eren away and left Jean alone. They walked for a bit. Then Eren froze, staring at nothing, his eyes a little too wide. His mouth quivered at the corners. The SRO drove him forward. "Keep walking."

A grin opened on Eren's face.

Phones recorded him being arrested and, grinning, Eren looked straight into the lenses and moved his tongue in short suggestive flicks. The girls holding the phones contorted their faces, watching Eren being arrested from their screens as it happened right in front of them.

"Ew," they said. "Gross."

The officer jerked Eren around. They marched, forcefully, to the exit.

Students watched. Quiet, they didn't even whisper, turning their necks, some stretching over other heads for a clear view. The seam of Eren's mouth ripped open, as if a horrible creature were tearing out of a dark underground cellar. His adam's apple jerked up and down in his throat. He shuddered all over as he was walked away, handcuffed.

"Stop that. Stop laughing. Quit it." The SRO shook him until the laughter was rattled out. Eren's jaws were slowly pulled shut, as if the creature had withdrawn back inside him, letting the doors fold close. They walked to the cafeteria's double doors. Eren's footsteps were slow and dragging.

"Walk right. Pick up your feet." The SRO jerked him. Eren picked up his feet from the floor.

Sunlight cut inside the cafeteria. The shutting doors sliced it off again. Then the talking started.

Whispering voices rose like a wave, gathering speed and mass, until it peaked at dangerous decibels again.

# # #

Now in the dean's office, Eren was out of his handcuffs. The door was shut. The dean told him the choices he'd made in the past didn't help his case. Even though the video proved he didn't initiate the fight or even reciprocate it, because of his record, he would serve two days in ISS.

"Maybe I've made some bad choices before," Eren said. "But I didn't make those choices today."

"Nothing would make me happier than to believe you're turning your life around. But here's the thing: There's been no evidence of that. People don't pull a one-eighty in a single day."

"If people can die in a second," Eren snapped his fingers like a light blinking out, "why can't they change in a day?"

"What'd I tell you about that tone, boy."

"Yes sir."

The rest of the day he spent in the self-contained ISS room. Holding his head in his hands, he sagged in the isolated study carrel. Mrs. Morrison stopped beside him.

"What's the matter, baby?"

"It don't matter what I say or do. I shoulda hit him. I shoulda busted him open. Nothing makes a difference."

"Don't talk like that, baby. These people just want what's best for you. These are good folk here."

"I don't want to be here."

"You're only in here for two days. Then you'll be out and on your way."

"No. I don't want to be _here_." Eren's voice broke, trying to tell her. He almost seemed to rock in his seat, but he sat still, his feet flat and even on the floor.

"What you try'na tell me, child? You're not looking like yourself." She stroked his back. He hunched inside his hands. "You'll be all right. The good lord watches over you. You remember that. All right?"

He shook his head and his hands closed and squeezed.

"Here. Take my hand, baby." Eren shook his head against his fists. Mrs. Morrison laid her palm on his shoulder and closed her eyes and spoke to the god she believed in and most of their town believed in, and said a low prayer. Amen. She opened her eyes. "Why don't you take your stuff and do your work at one of them tables out in that sunlight and let it soak down into you? I can see you from here. Go on. Go ahead, now."

Eren expanded his chest and let it sink again. "Yes ma'am."

He took up his belongings and opened the door. The daylight burst and collapsed around him until he was spirited away.

December

Like a giant throat, the dark woods swallowed the dirt road indefinitely, into nothing. The four of them had been staring at it for thirty minutes, leaning on the hood of Eren's car, breathing thin white wisps, like threads of soul leaving their mouths. Their jackets were buttoned up. A scarf was tucked against Mikasa's throat. They were huddled in close to stay warm.

"This ghost light's flakier than Eren," Armin said.

"Ay."

"It's not going to show up this time either. Are you sure Levi was telling the truth?"

Armin, Eren, and Annie looked at Mikasa.

"The last time we were here, I didn't say anything because I didn't want to scare you too much. But if you drive in the opposite direction, you'll come to this old abandoned chapel and a cemetery."

"You're lying."

"No."

"Please be lying."

They looked at each other. They piled into the car. Eren started it up. Heat blasted the trembly cold from the bodies. They unbuttoned their jackets and burned in the fire-breathing vents. Eren turned the knob. The flood of heat fell. They were comfortable now.

As they went, car lights beamed down the empty dirt road, striking the sharp trees on either side. Darkness encroached as the lights cut passed. They listened to the rocks and rubble going under the tires, quaking. Armin and Annie didn't even hold hands, sitting in the back seat, almost two feet apart. The road ended in a fork.

"Go right."

Eren pulled the wheel. Their bodies tilted with the car.

"There." Mikasa pointed. Eren turned off onto a path where a repetition of car tires had paved a permanent imprint into the grass. Eren followed the phantom-road. They felt the uneven ground going under them. Out of the dark, piercing the sky, the chapel rose, small and lonely.

The car stopped. Eren shifted to park.

"She wasn't lying."

They looked to the right. There was a wooden fence and a field with rounded stones. Eren turned the key. The engine ceased. They got out of the car. The shutting of car doors broke the night. Shoes whispered in weeds and crabgrass as they moved toward the chapel. The windows were opaque with a sooty film. Mikasa put her hands on the glass, cupping her eyes to see inside.

"It's too dark."

Annie moved behind her and went to the door. She took the handle in her fingers and pulled.

It came open.

Armin immediately shook his head and took a few backward steps, as if he were going to turn and bolt back to the car. "No," he said. "No."

"Chicken."

"Like I told you before, I'm not going to be one of those teenagers that dies from their own stupidity."

Mikasa and Annie looked at each other. Annie held the door open, letting Mikasa through first.

"Don't go in there," Armin said. "Please? Tell them, Eren."

"Yeah," Eren said tentatively. "It's private property. We shouldn't be breaking and entering an abandoned church we know nothing about."

"It's not breaking and entering," Annie said. "The door was unlocked."

"Don't go in there," Armin said. "You don't know what's going to happen."

"Nothing's going to happen," Mikasa said.

She walked inside.

"I didn't think smart people were superstitious," Annie said, and then went in after Mikasa.

The church door remained gaped open like a mouth, seeming to let out a draft of air that was a couple degrees colder than outside.

"They're crazy. They're insane." Armin clenched his hands behind his head. "I can't believe they went inside. Why are you being so quiet?"

"What?"

"You're not even paying attention."

"When you get nervous, I get nervous." Eren stood perfectly straight, his eyes darting to every hint of shadow curling around them. A wind sang over them and rained some leaves down from the dead winter trees. "I don't like this place. It's—"

A sudden sound came from under them.

Armin made a squeal. He and Eren shot inside the chapel with a full ring of white in their eyes, breathing hard, tensed like rabbits. Annie and Mikasa reeled around, startled. Eren thrust his hand into his pocket and removed his phone. It was ringing.

"It's just my phone," he said. He declined the call. Then he and Armin laughed with breathless relief.

Annie and Mikasa rolled their eyes.

Pews jutted in rows of unbroken desertion. There was no dust or sign that time had ever passed. A massive crucifix towered at the front. It was as if time didn't exist, with nothing ever changing, nothing ever ending, frozen in a time-chrysalis.

Annie grabbed the knob to a shut door that seemed to lead to a hallway. The knob jammed.

"It's locked," she said. Mikasa tried it too. There was the same jam of fixed metal. They tried together, pushing.

"Why's this one locked when the front door wasn't?"

"Who knows," Annie said. She went over to Armin and touched his wrist. Her hand slid along his pulse until their fingers brushed.

"Can we go back outside now?" Armin said. "You were right, there's nothing in here. So let's leave."

Annie moved to the door, holding his hand. They walked out together. Mikasa and Eren followed, exchanging indicative glances. Eren let Mikasa leave first and bent his head to whisper: "They make holding hands seem like some major milestone."

They each left the chapel like a breath and the inside held, frozen in its timeless pause. The door shut.

Outside, the wind dragged at them. Gravestones bulged in uneven lines, silent and gray, standing alone and as bare as human teeth. Mikasa went to the wood fence surrounding the cemetery. She began to hike a foot over it.

"Wait," Eren said. "I don't think you should do that."

"Scared?"

"No. I just don't like the idea of walking on top of dead people."

The moon fell on the cemetery. Headstones gnawed the earth. It was completely quiet like a sudden devastation. The wind wasn't moving anymore.

"We're probably always walking on top of dead people and don't even know it." Mikasa treaded through the sawgrass and weeds. "I want to see the dates. I want to see how old they are." She walked to a headstone and let her eyes work. They took in the light of the moon and she read the inscription. "Nineteen-twenty," she said.

"You're joking."

"No."

Eren stepped over the rail and entered the graveyard. Long grass hissed against his ankles. He scanned the headstones, reading the years. They walked down separate rows, stirring the grass with light-footed steps, reading out loud.

"Nineteen-fifteen."

"Nineteen-twelve."

"Nineteen-oh-seven."

"Nineteen-oh-three."

"Eighteen-eighty-four."

Mikasa's head went up. "Eighteen-eighty-four?" She froze. She stared. Her stomach tautened with a weakening fear.

She no longer felt the cold outside herself. It was inside her.

"What?" Eren said, "What?" seeing the look on her face. "You're freaking me out."

"We should leave."

"What is it? Did you see something?" Eren started toward her. Mikasa almost lurched back a step, putting up her hands wardingly. Eren stopped. "Mikasa, say something. Seriously."

"It's nothing," she said. She turned and headed back to the fence.

"What's going on?"

"Nothing. Let's just go."

"Mikasa—"

"Do you ever stop asking questions?"

She swung a leg over the wood fence.

They piled into the car again. The motor puttered and shafts of light cut in front of them. Eren swung the car around. They were on the dirt road again. Sharp trees and gray draping mosses went by and all the haunted darkness.

"Why are you acting weird?" Eren said. Three sets of eyes stared in the dark at her.

Mikasa looked at Eren. The glowing orbs had lifted off him, his silhouette turned toward her, unlit and wide. "It was nothing," she said. "My imagination got carried away. That's all."

December

The piano floated Christmas songs throughout the nursing home lobby. The residents sat, many in wheelchairs, with shut eyes, listening. They absorbed the music like parched earth after a drought, finally relieved by the rain, touched by life, living again. They rocked, smiling in a dream, remembering all the Christmases they'd lived and enjoyed. Levi, dressed in scrubs, went between residents, adjusting chairs, checking oxygen. One woman took his hand and he stood, patiently, enveloping her soft hand in both of his.

Levi went to a sallow-skinned woman with empty eyes and took the handles of her wheelchair. He wheeled her off. When he brought her back, she hadn't moved at all, suspended in a stupor, halfway living, not knowing she was alive. The music held in the air. Then it released and fell like a coat of shimmery childhood magic, dusting them all in the special joy of Christmas. They brought their fragile hands together and applauded.

"Wonderful. Beautiful."

"It takes you back. Doesn't it?"

"She's so talented. Your cousin is lovely."

Levi nodded, moving from person to person, hearing it for the hundredth time that hour.

"Good genes must run in the family."

Three women in wheelchairs spoke to each other, their voices like airy wooden flutes. They let out airy flute-like laughs. The lobby's front door was shoved and jarred open. A draft of winter leapt in. Eren and Armin walked through, their hair blowing, buttoned up in stiff jackets. Mikasa thrust off the piano bench and pushed it in. She smoothed down her red velvet Christmas dress and touched her hair, feeling at it self-consciously.

"Hey," Armin said. He and Eren each took a turn sliding an arm around her. "Did we surprise you?"

"Yes."

"Levi told us you'd be playing today. We weren't sure when to show up."

Eren handed her a bouquet of roses. "That's from both of us," he said.

Mikasa took the flowers into her arms. Her smile grew smaller and softer. "Thank you."

She cradled the flowers carefully. She appreciated the flowers as she had six years ago when she had finished her first and last piano recital at the First Baptist church where Eren, forced to attend, had shoved a bouquet almost angrily into her arms.

Watching them, the three women in wheelchairs smiled secretively into their hands. They went back in time to their youths, remembering the whimsical narrative of their pasts.

"Eren, Armin." Levi nodded the boys closer. "I want you to meet Margaret, Linda, and Mabel." He gestured at the three women sitting in wheelchairs.

"Levi is our boyfriend, you know," Mabel said.

"We're special. But you can't tell these other hags," Margaret said.

"We've seen his—" Linda leaned forward— "tattoos," she whispered. "He doesn't show them to anyone. But he let us have a good peek."

"That's how we know we're special."

"Come a little closer, boys. We'd like to see you better. These eyes don't work like they used to."

Eren and Armin moved a little closer. The women marveled at their youth. Their gazes moved between each boy and then to each other, making sure they were all seeing and thinking the same things. Margaret took Eren by the hand and fondled his arm.

"Oh, my goodness," she said, riveted. She held her friends' eyes, feeling the cords of young taut muscle, making a sly playful smile at them. The women giggled and swooned like teenagers.

"Sweet boy. Come closer. Let me pat your cheek." Eren bent his head and she cupped the side of his face. "You're a little stud, aren't you? Strong, and so handsome. Ooh."

Eren smiled, suddenly feeling embarrassed. The women giggled at this too, relishing all the youthful innocence. They began to tell stories of their grandsons, their sons, their husbands, their brothers; they told stories about the many men they knew and loved in all different ways. They told Eren and Armin how pretty they were. They told Eren and Armin how pretty Mikasa was and patted each of their hands, imparting an implicit message. They tapped it like a kind of Morse code.

"Well," they said, smiling at Mikasa. "Which one is it?"

"What?"

"No, no. A young girl like her needs to be greedy." It was the one named Margaret speaking. "When you're my age, you start to have regrets."

"At least one of them is yours?"

"The tall one, maybe? What do you think, Margaret?"

"You take them both, honey. You take them both and many many more."

Their laughs were high and airy.

"Stop that. She's shy. Look at her."

"There's not enough time in this world to be shy," Margaret told her. "Before you know it, you'll be eighty years old and nothing works right anymore. Here's what you need to do: Get yourself a good bra that'll lift those little boobies." Margaret placed her thumbs under Mikasa's breasts. "And a pair of hoochie mama shorts. You wear them everywhere you go. You tell her." She was speaking to Eren and Armin.

They shared a cryptic cautious look, not daring to say a word.

"These two are decent respectable boys, and that's fine and wonderful, but they're boys all the same. I'm telling you," she said. "Men aren't mysteries. We know how their minds work. Now, look here—" She fumbled in her purse. "I'll give you money and you go to the store, take your boyfriends with you and—"

"No, Ms. Margaret." Levi took her by the wheelchair. "Put that away."

"Hush. If there are good-looking boys like these around, she needs to learn." She started to pull up Mikasa's dress. "This needs to be about six—seven inches shorter—See? Lookie here. You've got some legs, darling." She made an appreciative sound at what lay under Mikasa's dress.

Mikasa put one foot on top of the other, holding the bouquet in one hand, thrusting the other down over her publicized thighs.

"Ms. Margaret," Levi said.

"Look at these long pretty legs. What I would've done for legs like these sixty years ago. If I had legs like that, I'd bend them back over my head and—well—" She cocked her thin lips at Eren and Armin. "You know what I'm talking about."

Armin's face grew rich with color.

"All right, Ms. Margaret. I'm taking you back to your room now. It's time for your medication."

"Hold your horses. Give me one second. Let me—" Levi turned her chair and began wheeling her off. Ms. Margaret rummaged in her bag. "Here, here, take it—" She waved two twenty-dollar bills above her head. "Come take this, quickly. Quickly! Lord knows I don't need it."

Levi took her away. The other two women smiled from their chairs, happy with the whole world and everybody in it. Eren, Armin, and Mikasa said good-bye and headed to the door.

"Please come back soon," they called after them.

"Yes, very soon."

"Look at that cute tush, Linda. That is a cute little tush."

"Shh. They can still hear you."

They walked out. The sun was gently warm. The blush in Armin's face had washed into his neck. Mikasa held her Christmas sheet music in one arm and the bouquet in the other.

"I hate going in those places," Eren said. "It's so depressing."

"I was too embarrassed to be depressed." Armin dropped his face in his hand.

"I was too depressed to be embarrassed," Eren said. "Their husbands are dead and most of their friends. Now they're sitting around in those chairs all the time, waiting to die too. Can you imagine?"

"They've lived full lives. They have a whole lifetime of memories to look back on."

"They have no choice but to look backward 'cause there's nothing to look forward to."

They thought about this. They imagined an infinite black of nothing and nothingness, too large to comprehend. It made them seasick with dread.

"Why does the end have to be so sad and miserable?" Eren said.

"Miserable?" Mikasa said. "When a cute tush walks in, can anything really be sad and miserable?"

Christmas

Christmas lights laid scattered across the surface of the fishing pond. The moon was close and large, like in a dream. A dark golf cart sat in the grass, overlooking the pond and the houses on the other side, lit up with strings of bulbs. In the golf cart, Mikasa, Armin, and Eren sat, holding mugs of hot chocolate, a blanket spread over their laps. Mikasa lifted her mug. A lump of gooey marshmallow slipped into her mouth.

"I'm glad we got to look at Christmas lights this year," Eren said. "The last time we did this was . . ."

"Ninth grade?" Armin said.

"We used to do this every year," Mikasa said.

"This might be the last time," Eren said. "Once we graduate—"

"Don't say it like that," Armin said. "Let's enjoy what we have right now."

"The lights are really pretty this year," said Mikasa.

The magic of Christmas lights brightened the night, and it was quiet and sweet. They nestled in, warming themselves with each other, padded in their jackets.

Eren was the warmest, sitting in the middle. "I need to tell you something," he said. "I know it's out of nowhere and I'll sound stupid. But I need to say it. It's something I've been thinking about a lot."

"Okay?" Armin and Mikasa, sitting on either side of Eren, looked at each other, leaning forward to read the other's eyes and try to figure Eren out.

"I'm really glad we got to be friends."

Armin and Mikasa pondered together, still looking at each other across the golf cart.

"I can't imagine what my life would've been like without you. You've always been there for me. Even when I wasn't always there for you."

"Why are you being so sentimental all of a sudden?" Armin said. "It's making my skin crawl."

"I just needed you to know."

"We already knew."

Suddenly a single strand of silk ran down the side of Eren's face. He touched it, astonished. Then another strand rolled down the other side, silver and bright. He touched his eyes, feeling them wet. Then his face flooded.

He threw his hood over his head and hid in his palms.

"Eren—"

"Don't," he said.

Eren tried to release saltwater silently and self-effacingly. He hid it, almost as if crying were of a similar practice as defecating, and to have people see him cry was like having people see him use the toilet.

Mikasa and Armin sat in the dark. They watched the shadow of Eren's back moving. Mikasa put her arms on his neck and leaned him onto her shoulder. He let himself be slanted against her, hiding his face in his hands. She felt him soundlessly moving.

The Christmas lights glittered on the houses and in the water. They closed in together, sitting, body to body.

"The weekend before we have to go back to school, why don't we go to Orlando and start on our bucket list," Armin said.

"Okay." Mikasa held Eren's back. She felt the fever of unstable emotion roasting him under his clothes.

They were quiet for a long time then. The lights had lost their magic, cold with color and distance and infinitesimal smallness, specks of electric matter, glowing forlornly. Their hot chocolate had become cool milk.

Eren lifted off Mikasa and sat up, still covered in his hood, still radiating with fever and emotion.

"We should invite Armin's girlfriend," he said.

"She's not my— " Armin spread his hands. "This is _our_ bucket list. This is about spending time with _each other_."

Eren pushed down his hood. Exhaustion pooled under his eyes. He squinted tiredly. "We'll still be with each other. But I was thinking: What if we're just making it worse for ourselves? If we start depending on each other now, how are we ever going to move on? I don't know what's better," he said. "Holding on tighter with the time we have left, or using that time to try to learn to let go."

Mikasa drew her legs up and gripped her knees tightly. "The first one, obviously. At least then we'll always be able to keep each other in our memories."

* * *

a/n: i honestly didn't know what to do with Historia, so I used Isayama's fake highschool AU plot to kind of inform this one. If you didn't know, there's always these fake previews at the end of each volume and it takes place in a highschool. Eren is some loser kid with no personality or ambition. Mikasa is a goth queen. And Armin is a geek. Historia is a queen bee character and she says something bad about Eren that turns into a rumor and ppl start bullying Eren over it. And he's completely blindsided cos he has no idea who Historia is. so that's where my inspiration came from


	11. The New Year

7k words, sorry for the wait

**I tried posting this chapter (twice) cos it keeps disappearing? there's a glitch or something. sorrrrrryyyyy

Thank you for reading!

* * *

New Year's Eve

The foosball slammed around, faster than their eyes could follow. Shouts rose, the ball jarring off tiny stick-players and walls. Eren, Connie, Mikasa, and Jean bashed the ball from one side to the other, defending their goals with wrist-power and reflex. Mikasa twisted the rod. The ball shot past Connie's defenders and crashed into the goal. Jean and Mikasa won.

"Hell yeah." Jean and Mikasa high-fived.

"You is straight trash." Eren smacked Connie across the neck.

"Me?" Connie said. "Bruh, this was you." He moved the rods with exaggerated uncoordination and struggle.

It mildly looked like Eren's foosball playing.

In the living room, a mounted TV showed New York City and Times Square and lights and endless crowds in coats and hats and scarves, cheerful and waving at those across the world as everybody waited for the Ball to drop. A symbolic guillotine before the genesis and rebirth. On the back porch, Hanji and Levi were playing cards with a group of friends. Blue smoke drifted from their shared cigar, lazy vague shapes like those of Levi's tattoos, as if they'd burned off his bare arms. In the living room, a Christmas tree still towered, rotating on an axis.

Jean paved a paper plate with jalapeño poppers and chips and buffalo dip. Rum and coke swished in his red solo cup.

"Want a drink?" said Jean.

"No, thank you," said Mikasa.

They joined the others in the living room.

In Times Square, a music artist was performing for the crowd, in the middle of the lights and screaming and anticipatory celebration. Sitting around the room, all seven people held up their ten fingers and studied each other with calculating inquiries and suspicions.

Eren started off the game.

"Never Have I Ever dyed my hair."

"A'ight," Jean said, putting down a finger. "I see how it's gonna be." Annie and Sasha's fingers went down too.

"Never Have I Ever ridden a bike," Connie said.

"Never?"

"Nah, mane. Put down yo' finger."

They put down their fingers.

"Never Have I Ever been out of state," Sasha said.

Fingers were tucked in.

"Never Have I Ever been in a fight," Annie said and watched the hands around her. She saw Armin's hands. "You?" she said, surprised.

"I was picked on a lot," he said. "I didn't have much of a choice."

"Does that count?"

"He fought back. It counts."

"Armin's turn."

"Never Have I Ever—" Armin searched his mind for an experience unexperienced by him yet—"kissed anyone."

Mikasa watched the fingers around her fall.

"Never Have I Ever been in a relationship," Mikasa said.

Everyone put away a finger.

Jean was next.

"Never Have I Ever been to a _Quinceañera_." Jean watched the others. His eyes went to Mikasa. "I find it funny that we're all pissed when we lose a point. Then there's Mikasa."

"Yeah, yeah. Her whole face brightens up."

"Like a little kid."

"It's cute."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Mikasa said. They laughed. Her face burned a little.

The game circled around, escalating in scandal and filth, until it was Jean's turn again. He and Eren were tied to lose, each with a solitary finger left standing. For a second, Jean thought.

"Never Have I Ever . . ." and they all knew by the tone, already turning their eyes across the living room where Eren sat on the couch, tautened, knowing too, waiting for it: "Gotten a handjob under the cafeteria table," Jean said.

The partying on the TV went on in New York City. Eren congealed under their interrogative stares. They hunted for an incriminating clue. They saw none.

"You can't lie," Jean said. "Everybody was talking about it for like a month."

"And you believed them?" Eren said.

"Don't lie."

"Jean," Mikasa said. "It was only a rumor."

Reporters reported on how happy and excited New York City was for the new year. Music drowned out the screams and cheers. A commercial came on. There was a wonderful sale at Bed Bath & Beyond.

Eren's last finger laid down.

"Shi-i-i-i-t."

"Told you, Connie. What'd I tell you?"

"Man, what was you doing?"

"Nora's friends dared her to and so she did."

"All the respect I had for you." Connie's hands performed a disappearing act.

Jean boasted in his black leather jacket. "I knew it. Didn't I? None of you believed me. Didn't I say it was true? I told you, Armin. I said, 'There's no doubt Eren's the kind of jackass that'd whip his dick out at school.'"

"I didn't whip it out. They were daring each other to do stupid stuff." Eren was growing agitated, his jaw becoming looser and looser, insisting he wasn't what they thought he was: "And then she grabbed my penis."

Jean and Connie blinked, once. Then their lungs swelled and emitted a crazy laughing roar that blinded and toiled their abdomens.

"That should be the end to every story," Connie said, bawling. "Instant Nobel Prize winner."

"Nobel Prize _wiener_," Sasha said, knowing how great and hilarious she was.

Instantly, the laughter died into groans of torment.

"Ah, god. No."

"Sasha."

"Get the hell out."

Muffled shouts came from the back patio. The adults were excited about their card game, rocking in their chairs, hollering. Their voices quieted again as their hands did cunning mysterious things with their cards.

In three more turns, the game of Never-Have-I-Ever ended.

Mikasa won.

Outside in the backyard, fold-up chairs were set up. A blanket was spread out in the grass for Armin and Annie to share. In the night, each person was nothing but floating hands attached to a lit sparkler. Fantastic bursts of tiny comets, all around.

"Mikasa," Eren said, watching the point at which the stick sprayed off into dancing sparkles: "What do you think of me now? Are you disgusted?"

Mikasa wrote on the night with her sparkler, drawing streaks that glowed and floated in front of their eyes: N-O, it said. Eren wrote a reply. They read the sparks shaping letters on the darkness: G-O-O-D, it said.

"Noralis was laughing," Eren said, "and all of them were laughing and saying things to get me to go along with it." He shook his head at himself. The sparkler flickered and burned down toward his fingers.

"I think most people have something they wish they could take back," said Mikasa.

"Do you have something you wish you could take back?"

Sparks leapt from Mikasa's metal stick and snowed inside her ear. She slapped a hand over it, hearing fire-rain. She held her ear, wincing.

"Yeah," she said, tightly.

"Are you okay? Are you still getting ear aches?"

Mikasa's sparkler continued burning. The fire-rain in her ear disappeared.

"Not in a while."

Eren's flame sputtered and died. A second later, Mikasa's did the same. One at a time, the sparklers faded away.

New Year's Eve

The house squatted on Lake Verona. An American flag billowed in the front lawn. A Confederate flag flew under it.

Ymir opened the front door and went inside. Cheerleaders and baseball players sat around, drinking. The smell of weed mixed with the smell of spit tobacco. Pausing what they were doing, Charisma and Tyrell swung their heads around and caught Ymir's eyes, acknowledging silently, though none of them were friends. They all returned to their business.

Ymir found Historia with a small group of people on the backporch. They were smoking a bowl.

"Ymir." Historia offered and passed it to her.

Ymir declined and sat in an iron chair. The others urged and laughed, and began a philosophic discussion on the strains and methods of smoking weed.

"We're just vibing out here," they told her.

Ymir looked at the small circle of people, her face like a wall, unbreakable and unreadable. They felt that Ymir had many secrets and was always laughing at them in secret. They hated her for this. They smiled like snakes, urging her to toke up, insisting, then insulting her when she declined.

Ymir smiled like acid and stood and went back inside. She walked directly to the front door. Tyrell and Charisma ignored her this time. Historia caught up. Together, she and Ymir exited.

In the front lawn, the flags whipped around with fabricy snaps.

Historia slipped around Ymir's elbow, resting her blond head on Ymir's arm. "Thank you for coming. You really saved me."

"You need to surround yourself with better folk."

"I don't need anyone," Historia said. "Just you."

They went between cars and got into Ymir's vehicle.

Ymir took Historia behind a grand Colonial Spanish hotel, built in 1927. It was once a place that hosted galas and celebrity. Then its investors went bankrupt. The legend was each investor after had died of mysterious causes. Now the building sat, deserted and sad, for new owners to finish its restoration, which hadn't happened in a decade. People living nearby claimed they could often see lights moving from window to window and strange orbs floating above the lawn.

Ymir got out. She approached the chain-link fence circling the hotel and leaned against it. Historia opened the passenger side door and remained in the car, watching Ymir and her long lean arms and her long lean legs, slanted against the fence.

"Do you believe in ghosts?" Ymir called back to the car, not turning around, just watching the hotel.

"I've seen one," Historia called back.

"Yeah."

"I'm telling the truth."

Hanging on the hotel was darkness inside other darknesses, in niches, in corners, behind columns. Ymir watched the darkness inside darkness, her eyes moving, following, though there was only the sheets of darknesses, nothing else to see. Back in the car, Historia twisted and reached behind the console into the back seat.

"I also saw Peter Pan when I was little," she said.

"Tch." Ymir reverted her head, seeing Historia rummaging around in the vehicle.

"I'm being serious," Historia said. "This boy appeared and disappeared right in front of my eyes. I'm not kidding. Scared me half to death."

Ymir returned to the car. Historia was still on her knees, stretched over the console, reaching into the backseat. Historia's dress drew up as she dug deeply in Ymir's duffle bag. Ymir craned her neck a little and stole a sly peek. Carefully she sank a caressing touch on Historia's leg.

"What are you doing?" Ymir said.

"I put something in your bag the other day," Historia said, distracted, her voice small from the backseat. "But you never got it."

"Yeah?"

Ymir got inside, rocking the car a little. The door clicked. Interior light beamed down on them. Ymir touched the back of Historia's thigh, moving her hand up caressingly. There was a whisper of dress movement.

"Yeah. It was my personal sketchbook. I drew a—" Historia spun, her eyes round, aware of Ymir's hand now. They looked at each other in the car, their chests lifting and falling. The interior light blinked off and bathed them in an envelope of secret darkness.

Silently Historia crawled into Ymir's lap and groped at the buttons of Ymir's jacket. She opened them, blind. The seat handle was grabbed, the passenger seat reclined. Sightlessly, they saw images with their hands, feeling at each other to see.

Ymir's freckles were like pools of stars in a clear open sky.

New Year's Eve

Rockets shot off and detonated, blasting apart in showers of colors and light. Armin flinched at each explosive, smothering his ears with his hands. Annie put her hands over his and, together, they held his head in a gentle quiet.

A vibration shook Eren's pocket. He dug out his phone. The caller surprised him. With one hand, he plugged his left ear. With the other, he answered.

"Reiner?"

"Eren—I need you to—come around to—the front— Can you come to—the front—?"

"What? You sound out of breath."

"Come to—the front. I'm in— the driveway."

The call ended.

Eren got up from the fold-up chair. Without saying anything, he walked off. Mikasa, with a slow swivel of her head, followed him with her eyes as he disappeared into the house. It was 11:59 PM. She unfolded her legs, putting the beginnings of motion into her muscles, thinking she might go after him. 11:59 PM. It was less than a minute. She watched the door, hoping he'd come back out. It was less than a second now. If she ran, then maybe. Even if she did, maybe not—

Fireworks lurched and dominated the night sky in an enflamed brilliance. Mikasa raised her face to the explosions as they hurtled and bloomed into a dazzling triumph.

It was January 1st.

"Looks like we're the only ones left."

"Huh?" Mikasa looked at Jean, who'd leaned over in his chair, his face turned to her. She looked around, at Armin and Annie, at Sasha and Connie, at Levi and Hanji, and the other adults. They each had paired off, turning their faces to one another. Under the fire and thunder, lips briefly met.

"Do you want to? for the tradition?" Jean gestured at Connie and Sasha and their friendly kiss.

"I—" An air pocket formed in Mikasa's throat. "I— I'm sorry. I was about to see where Eren went."

"Eren? Didn't he go inside?"

Light and darkness flashed and faded on their faces. A spout of wailing rockets gushed high above the houses, leaving tails of fire, winding, sizzling, vanishing, without any bang or uproar, in an unsettling suspense.

"Oh," Jean said, understanding. "He's the one you wanted to share the tradition with."

"What? No—" Mikasa rubbed her chest. It was constricting, making it hard to breathe. "I was just worried. He left all of a sudden."

"He probably went to get a drink."

"Yeah." Mikasa's voice weakened with embarrassment. "I'm going to go see. Do you want anything?"

"Nah, I'm good."

"Okay."

Mikasa stood with her head tucked down, embarrassed, and went inside. Jean watched her going away and liked the way her long legs moved. Explosions burned up the sky, leaving great billows of smoke. Thunder rolled through their bones. Colors and light shattered, falling like rain. Jean turned back around and hated how stupid he was. Sasha and Connie took the fold-up chairs on Jean's left and right.

"Stop mumbling to yourself like a weirdo," Sasha said.

"Piss off. I just embarrassed myself." Jean covered his head, cringing. "Royally."

"Your whole life's an embarrassment."

"Shut up. Your whole face is an embarrassment," but his heart wasn't in it.

# # #

Cars had volleyed for space in the driveway. Some vehicles were crammed on the side of the street. The Jeep was still clicking and huffing out flatulent sighs. The headlights beaming down the road flashed off. Eren went down the driveway.

As Reiner worked up the driveway to meet him, the movements were wrong. Reiner's right leg went left. His left leg went right. It was like the ground was spongy rubber, conspiring against him. He fought to stay on his feet, feeling the rubber collapsing under each step, fighting him off.

Eren met Reiner by the road. "Man, you're fucked up."

The sallow streetlight caught water glitteringly on Reiner's face. His knees buckled on weak footsteps. Eren flung his arms open and caught Reiner, barely, as the ground rushed up to beat him. Shaking hard, Reiner moved his mouth and made unutterable miserable sounds.

"What?" Eren said.

Reiner made more unutterable miserable sounds, spurting out tears.

"I can't understand anything you're saying."

Reiner clung to Eren's shoulders and collapsed into the circle of Eren's arms. Eren stumbled, half-falling, catching himself and bracing Reiner.

The back of Reiner's blond hair was clumped, black.

Reiner grabbed Eren's face, the ground moving under him, and fixed Eren's head still. When he let go, Reiner backed up, alarmed to see Eren up close and in front of him. He covered his mouth with a hand.

"It's okay," Eren said. He raised his open palms to ease and calm.

Reiner's throat expanded. His lips clamped and caught, his cheeks ballooned around it, holding. Then he flung his neck out, still covering his mouth. Vomit squirted through the cracks of his fingers.

"Shit." Eren went to him.

Reiner fell to the ground on hands and knees. The clump in his hair was shining, wet.

Sleep was pulling, dragging Reiner under, his head giving in, falling slack. Eren picked him up. "Hey, stay awake. Reiner. _Reiner_." Reiner's consciousness went in then out, his neck limp then not.

Eren supported Reiner into the house, lifting him under the right shoulder. Inside, everybody stopped what they were doing to stare. Swiftly, they rushed over. Jean seized Reiner's left arm. He and Eren jointly hauled Reiner to the sofa.

"Set him down easy," Eren said. "He's got an ugly knot on his head."

Carefully they sank him, passed out, onto the sofa. The cushions huffed, crushed under weight and mass. Mikasa rushed to the kitchen sink and dampened a washcloth and returned to mop Reiner's sweaty face. They sat around the living room, looking on at the couch. All the New Year's mirth was abruptly gone. A solemn gravity closed over them.

"He just showed up out of nowhere," Eren said. "I don't even know how he found his way here."

"I invited him," Mikasa said. She rubbed vomit from Reiner's mouth and chin and folded the washcloth. With the clean side, she patted his perspiring hairline. "He's your friend, isn't he?"

"How am I supposed to know?" Eren said. "He's been ignoring me ever since Historia made that video. It didn't take much for him to stab me in the back."

"Really?" Jean said. "You're going to dwell on your own hurt feelings right now? _Look_ at him."

"I hate this," Eren said. "I hate all this."

Eyes shifted to him. Eren looked at nothing and, somehow, he looked at each of them.

"I'm so fucking _sick_ of everything and everybody. If they'd all mind their own goddamn business, none of this would be happening." His voice projected over the TV and drove through them the way a minister's voice does more than speak to listeners. It shuffles up souls. Wordlessly they agreed and grew angry with Eren and wronged.

"Sometimes," now Eren's voice dropped, as if he were letting them in on a secret, dropping his low conspiring voice directly to their ears without moving from the couch, leaning slightly forward: "I wish something would happen. Something that'd shake them all to pieces. How would they act, then? Bet things wouldn't be so goddamn funny anymore."

"Like what?"

"Something bad. Really bad."

The gravity swallowed over them like a tide. The porch door opened. The adults came through. Laughter gusted in with them. The laughter faded as the tide swallowed them too. Everyone was silent, trying to apprehend and understand. Levi wrangled up his face.

"Who's the sweaty gorilla sleeping on Hanji's couch?"

New Year's Day

The foosball smashed around the table. Jean looked up when Mikasa came in. Her eyes searched around and touched everything with a growing disappointment and dread. The ball slammed into the goal.

"Yah, boy-ee." Connie moved the final score disc. He celebrated his win.

Jean released the rods, his head still turned over his shoulder. "What are you looking for?"

"Have you seen Eren?" she said.

"He left."

"Without saying anything?" Worry weighted down her mouth.

Jean automatically went to her and softened. "Hey, don't worry too much. He'll come back, I bet."

She held herself. "It's just—I have this bad feeling and the situation with Reiner has me shaken up. Do you know where he went?"

"I have a guess." Jean watched her worry to herself. Softened, he came closer. "Reiner's got us all shaken. It doesn't look good right now. But all he needs is a little time to sleep it off. Things'll look better in the morning."

"But now Eren," she insisted, her mouth in rigid downturn.

"Yeah, he's a moron. But he'll be all right, too."

"The only fool you got to worry about is this man right here," Connie said. "He done got wrecked twice." He held up two fingers.

"That last one don't count."

Laughter diminished as Connie walked out and down the hall. They heard him and the others talking and moving around in the kitchen.

"It's hard to let go sometimes," Jean continued, his tone lowering again. "Eren's hung up 'cause she's his first. That makes it harder."

"Was it like that for you?"

"Maybe a little. It wasn't too bad, though. I wasn't all that invested in the first place."

"What do you mean?"

"I had feelings for somebody else. I think I was just trying to put an end to those feelings by being with her. You know what I mean?"

"Not really."

Jean smiled without his teeth. "That's because you don't like to play games with people."

"I'm not interested in any of it. I'd rather be with all of you, like how we are right now. But it's not the same when someone's missing."

"So if I weren't here, you'd miss me?"

"Most likely."

"You should definitely miss me." This time when Jean smiled, it was a fanged smile. "Everyone should miss me _intensely_. I'm a very important person."

New Year's Day

The house shook with the hard, bassy agonies of music. Every now and again, fireworks went off like rifle shots. The woods were out back; a bit farther were cow pastures. Songs alternated between rap and Latin. Eren cut into broiling mobs, weaving through magnetic circles of odd hungry glints.

In the living room, one of Noralis's friends was crowded by other friends. When Eren went over, slowly she turned her expressionless face on him, sweetly dusted by brown freckles. Her perfume hung in a sweet pungent cloud.

"Ay, Yenaida. Where Nora at?"

She was expressionless as ever, sweetly dusted and sweet-smelling, with big moist lips. "Why would I tell you? You left her. She needed you and you left. You never even tried to talk things out. I know she did wrong. But she struggles, and you know that. All she needed was a little understanding. You're an asshole."

Eren moved past her. "A'ight. Never mind." A fuzz of perfume clung to his nasal passage. His body contracted and tried to dislodge it. His eyes watered irritably. He took a few steps, and was stopped.

"Ay, man. You know that girl over there? Who that is?" Eren stretched his neck around, looking. "The one with the long hair you was just talking to."

"Nah. I don't know who that is."

"You was just talking to her, man."

"Nah, jit."

The house was in a constant vibration like a giant anatomical abomination as everybody inside whirled around, dancing, drinking, laughing. Doors clashed open. Doors slammed shut. There was the insane and the shameless, the violent and the appalling. Around corners, whispers and stares lurked, and Eren passed, feeling whispers and stares that he couldn't see or hear.

Down a dark crammed hallway, he winded through a hot jumble for a long stretch with no visible end, twisting this way and that, bumping shoulders and elbows, as though nothing but shoulders and elbows crowded him, when a sound came behind him like a whap. After a second, he registered the impact and then could slowly feel where he'd been slapped on the ass. He flung his head over his shoulder and saw a girl laughing. Her eyes were like cat eyes, glinting with that odd magnetic hunger, and her friends were laughing, their mouths wide open. The backs of their tongues quivered, wet.

"Ooh, he don' like that."

"He muggin'. He muggin' hard."

A ringing flew inside Eren's ears. He dropped his eyes and sized the girl up, and scowled in a look of profound unamazement. She sucked her teeth.

"Wat'chu starin' at? You fugly bitch-ass nigga." She danced, her movements full of malice and laughter, as she insulted him, clapping her hands like strikes to hurt him. "You. Can't. Hit. It."

Her friends screeched, their tongues bright and pink.

Eren sized her up, unimpressed all over again. "I'm about to pop some rubbaband pussy. I don' want none of that gassed-out queef."

Her friends were all tongue and throat. "A-a-ah," they said, "this boy said 'queef,'" scream-laughing, enjoying him too much.

The house seemed to go on forever. The music trembled the walls like swells of pain. Voices gnawed at Eren, following him. He turned, watching over his shoulder. He looked in front. There were too many places to watch, not enough eyes to see. His lungs began to close.

"Boy, ay, ay, I'ma keep it a buck." Appearing at his shoulder was the girl who'd harassed him. She matched him stride for stride. "You fine as hell. I like a cute butt. But, uh, I like a cute mouth better. What's your name?"

"It's Eren."

"Eren." She smiled. It wasn't an unpleasant smile. "Big Man Eren," she said.

"You know Noralis? You know where she at?"

"Nah-ah. You baby daddy?"

"What?"

"You could have my lil' brown babies. We could make us up some Reese's peanut butter cups." When she looked at him, he was licking his bottom lip and, needing no other sign, knowing exactly what it meant, she sprang and grinded her hips, humping him through his sweatpants. She cupped his crotch. He caught her hand, wrenching it away.

"Damn, girl. You got no chill. For real." Eren crashed against the wall, wrestling her body off him. "You're so aggressive. _Shit_."

"What's the problem, Big Man?" She saw him rub his tongue over his lip again and, frustrated, she sucked her teeth. "Boy, if you keep lickin' them fat lips, there won't be no spit left in yo' mouth."

She went away in her tight little two piece, making her hips work. Gazes and those odd hungry glints lingered. A few guys moved their stares from her to Eren, giving him looks of incredulous disappointment and disdain. Eren imagined he could see their skulls grinning, laughing at him.

Eren continued through the house.

It became harder to pump his legs and make them move.

His vision crowded in and blackened.

He felt along the wall, finding his way by feeling.

When his breathing came in, it stayed at the top of his chest, as if his ribs were pressing in. His lungs dragged. He got no breath. He closed his eyes.

"_Oye_, Bitchboy."

His eyes snapped open.

Miguel thumped Eren's shoulders.

Eren's neck-hair stood on end. Blood pushed through his cranium. "What the fuck are you doing here?" he said, seeing red.

"What the fuck are you doing here without your beautiful friend? Nobody want to see your ugly gorilla chin." He tried to pinch Eren under the jaw.

Eren shoved forward, seeing in red terrible throbs. Miguel followed, finding everything about Eren hysterical.

"People say to me you like boys now. I am not surprised. You know a beautiful girl for ten years and you don't even kiss her. You are a pussy."

Eren turned. His chin depressed slightly to look down on Miguel. "Ya best back the fuck up and get out of my face."

Dimples pierced Miguel's face. He smiled whitely.

"What is her number? You are a pussy. But not me. I can give her what she wants."

"Bitch, she don't want nothing to do with you."

"Who say that? We danced for a long time and she loved it. She is shy. But I can tell she likes me. After you left, it was only me and her, and we play a little under the table." He moved his long slender finger in a short motion. "Her panties were soaked like a waterfall."

"You eat a pile a horseshit? 'Cause it all be comin' out yo' stank mouth."

"You know how girls don't like their thighs to touch together with their pussies dripping wet?" Before he knew what it was, Eren felt his blood running, accelerating— "She want me so bad she walk funny for a long time after she come back from pissing. You know what I am talking about," he said. "You know."

Miguel's mouth stretched open, laughing.

Eren's knuckles bashed it in. A red jet flowed out.

Eren and Miguel spun around, fists beating one another, their bodies jolted each time with a blunt _thwak_, skin shaking and hurting, grunts spat out of them as they exploded violence from their muscles and bones, trying mightily to break each other. People crashed in on them, screaming.

"Kick his fucken ass."

"Beat that light-skin ni—"

Then the sound of the room rushed away. Voices of panic and excitement and horror went out in an extinguished fizzle. The room swam, everything going away, a million miles distant. There was still the fighting, a crowd crashing over each other, encouraging and shouting, and trying to see, everything growing quiet. Eren swung, becoming slower and slower, fighting underwater, the dark ocean thickening each second. Everything grew dark except Miguel's flapping red mouth.

Then that dissolved too.

? ? ?

_No matter what I do, it always ends the same. _

As always, the field stretched from horizon to horizon, in the endless tranquility, with its tall blowing grass. The white fence cut down the middle, into eternity. The high blue sky, the wind, and the sun that never moved, forever fixed at a plumb vertical.

He was told that it was like pulling a single thread in a million-mile quilt to make it come apart a million times. It might take you a million years to find.

Then he was told that, maybe, it doesn't even exist.

Still, Eren tried again.

New Year's Day

The house had quieted. It was at that hour too far from dusk and too far from dawn and too deep with thoughts and too filled with emptiness. It was the loneliest hour, the darkest hour. Mikasa was still awake. The others had found places to sleep for the night. Mikasa sat on the couch with her knees pulled up. Her phone cast lightwash across her face, her eyes holding two blue electrical puddles.

"Mikasa?"

The phone winked off. Shadow rushed in to cover her entirely. "Hey. How are you feeling?"

Reiner's eyes glistened, wet, his blood and brain still sloshing and heavy. "Did you know from the beginning?" Mikasa took a moment to try to understand. The understanding never came, the silence going on as Reiner waited. "How I felt," he explained.

"About what?"

This time Mikasa pretended not to understand.

"Why didn't you say anything to anyone?" Reiner said, knowing that she was pretending. "You could've told Eren. You could've told him and we wouldn't have even been friends."

"Why would I do that?"

"Everyone's talking about everybody all the time. They'd be bored to death if they weren't talking about each other constantly."

Reiner was large on the couch, muscled like a grown man. His eyes were seeping like a little boy's. He didn't try to hide it. It never even crossed his mind to try to hide it.

"I'm a pretty boring person," Mikasa said.

Reiner look at her from his miserable glistening eyes. "How do you feel about Eren?"

"What do you mean? We've been friends since third grade."

"Do you want something more?"

"I'm grateful for what we have."

"That's not an answer."

"We were friends first. Maybe he's just always going to need me to be his friend." She lifted her shoulders around her ears and felt her thoughts and emotions flee the question. The thoughts and emotions were almost brought back to consider it. Then they fled again.

For some time, it was quiet. Mikasa picked up her eyes. Reiner was passed out again. She rose and touched his face, measuring his temperature. She could feel where he'd been crying and smelled his curdled sweat-vomit-tears smell.

Delicate restrained noises came from the kitchen.

Mikasa left and went to see what it was. In the kitchen, light poured from the fridge over Levi who was dressed for bed, hair shower-damp. He put away the leftover food and shut the door. The light sliced off. He turned to Mikasa.

"Can you make sure Reiner is okay?" she said. "He was awake and suddenly fell asleep again."

Levi followed her to the living room. Mikasa watched as he attended to Reiner. He straightened.

"He's all right."

Concern was stiff in Mikasa's shoulders.

"It's late," Levi said. "The rest of your friends have already gone to bed."

"I can't go to bed. What if we're all asleep and Reiner chokes? What if he's concussed and his brain is damaged? There's this horrible pit in my stomach. I don't know what to do."

"It'll be all right," he said. "I'll come in every couple of hours to check on him." He took her shoulders in a reassurance. "My job is to take care of dying people. I'd tell you if there was anything to worry about."

The concern never lightened or eased, her shoulders still stiff.

"Look," Levi said. She looked. He turned up the inside of his arm and kneaded the veins in his elbow, rolling up a peppering of scar tissue until it stood out under his tattoos. "When I was a kid, my friends and I didn't hang around a nice suburban house with a bunch of clean adults. Y'all are doing better than you think."

Mikasa searched for her voice. It voided on her. Levi went into the kitchen. He opened the sink faucet and rubbed his hands in the spout and closed the faucet and flicked his fingers. Then he dried his hands on a towel.

"You were right," he said.

"About what?" she said.

"I've decided to propose."

Mikasa's jaw dropped.

"You said it yourself: We've been living together for four years. I even have the ring. I'm just waiting for the right time."

Mikasa closed her lips and shaped them into a smile. Then she drifted off and traveled to the future. It was the wedding and the two together and everyone together, happy like they'd never been happy before, and Eren and her and Armin happy because Levi and Hanji were happiest of all, everybody wearing nice dresses and suits, reveling, with everything everywhere dove-white like a dream.

"I'm glad for you," she said, and smiled.

New Year's Day

The red fog over Eren's mind blotted out anything his eyes saw and he could hear nothing beyond a thumping like rabbit feet in his chest. His mouth moved, him hearing nothing of himself as Noralis held his face, soothing him, _shhh, shhh, you don't want to kill him, I know Miguel is bad, shhh, he only says shit to make you mad, he always wants to fight you, baby, he's just jealous, _then she led him through the house. A door opened, shut. Then it was as if their clothing let go, gone, and she climbed on the bed and laid down on her belly. Eren stood behind her and took her by the hips. He jerked. Noralis gasped as if ice water had been poured on her.

The door opened. Hall light struck the two. The motion continued, unbroken, with punitive bodily claps.

"Shut the fucken door," Noralis said, breathless on her belly, Eren, silent and standing, ignoring all interference. "Stop gawking, bitch. You never seen ass before?"

The light was sucked away. It was dark again with their bodies moving, never stopping, and Noralis cussing and Eren breathing, beginning to sweat. He flipped her onto her back, still standing. The bloat of her breasts was especially plump and tender. His eyelids screwed shut, his face gathering in a tight ugly pinch.

It was done before Noralis was ready for it to be over. She lied on her back in a deprivation. Eren crawled onto the bed, finished with it, with her, and everything, turning away on his side, short of breath. They lied next to each other, feeling lonelier than any loneliness they'd ever known. In the following clarity, he resented her and himself and what he did, sick to his stomach. He curled on his side, half-burying his face in the pillow, looking inward at himself.

"I want to die," he said. His voice sounded deep, a thousand miles off.

"Everybody wants to die. If you were serious about it, you'd just do it. You wouldn't be telling nobody about it."

He lied silently, hearing his own breathing far down and deep, like it wasn't his.

"You coulda been born poor. You coulda been born ugly. You coulda been born the same as Giovanni, and disabled."

Eren listened to his own breathing. There were the small sounds of Noralis on the bed. Everywhere else, the house moved, people mixing, tearing in and out, whirling, noises picking up, drinks being drunk. All of it lay muffled, just outside the dark enclosed bedroom.

"I'm pregnant."

Eren rolled over. He looked at Noralis's body—the developing curve of her abdomen, the new ripeness to her breasts. He put a hand on his mouth, realizing it with a devastated shock.

"How many times I told you?" she said. "I got to gain one-hundred pounds or shave my head bald for you to even notice any kind a difference."

Eren sat, not comforting her yet, not saying anything as he waited for something to happen inside himself. It was like tossing a stone into a well, listening for a splash.

"You think I'm ready to be a mom? I'm not ready for that. I'm scared outta my mind. But you don't hear me talkin' bout how I want to give up on everything. Do you have any idea how that makes me feel?"

There was nothing as he waited for himself to do something. He could feel the heat of tears pooling from her eyes. His hands moved.

"Nora," he said. "Don't cry." His wrists framed her face. He was doing none of the comforting himself, his hands, his wrists moving on their own because that's what his hands were supposed to do, his voice speaking by itself; him still waiting for something to happen, still listening.

"You're not even asking. You think you know, don'chu? You think you're so damn slick."

"You cheated on me."

Noralis cried hotter, boiling out tears. "We was still together, _Papi_. How come you don't ask?"

"I know what we did and when we did it. That's why I don't got to ask."

Noralis trembled in his hands. "I'm sorry. I never been more sorry about anything in all my life. I never regretted anything like I regret hurting you. You got to believe me."

He said nothing, holding her face, being gentle without feeling himself doing anything to be gentle.

"There had to be a time," she said, hot with salt, trying to make him doubt. "How can you remember for sure? It could be yours. You don't know."

Eren let go.

"What do you want me to do? Stay with you?" The red fog came in a heavy sweep. Eren shut his eyes. "I don't love you. I don't love anything. I can't love anything 'cause I hate myself. There's no room for nothing else. So, what do you want? You want me to stay? Is that what you want?" Inside he was packed in and too tight.

"Nobody likes themself. I never liked myself, neither."

He couldn't hear her, tight inside.

"I'm disgusting. Maybe I'd want to die too if I could. But I can't anymore. I can never think about what I want for myself again."

"I want you to stay," she told him. "Please," she said.

He sat, all tight inside, wanting to break his head open.

"_Papi_," she cried. "I'm scared. I don't know what to do."

"I know you're scared. But I can't stay. I can't. I'm sorry." Eren got his legs off the bed. Then he got his legs under him and took them to the door. Noralis watched him dress, starved of him, feeling deprived since the beginning. "Do you know you were hardly there for me?"

"What are you talking about? You wasn't there for me, neither. We in this situation 'cause you mentally and emotionally checked out. You was just like Davion."

"God." He scoffed, his eyes growing wet, his face hideous with an exquisite sadness. "I tried. I tried so hard. I don't want to try to do anything anymore. I'm tired. I just want to—stop."

Then he left.

New Year's Day

A shape moved into the kitchen and through it. Mikasa watched. Then it crossed into the living room and Eren stood there in the dark, his face dark, her looking where she thought his eyes were.

"You came back," she whispered.

"Yeah."

Her feet carried her briskly across the tile. She didn't touch him, studying his face up close. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," he said. They were both whispering in the sleeping house. "You look exhausted. Why are you still up?"

She waved at Reiner. "I didn't want to leave him alone. I kept imagining him puking in his sleep and choking to death, like Tyler Lam did."

"Were you friends with Tyler?"

"No."

"Reiner'll be okay. He's just sleeping now."

"I was also worried about you. You left without saying anything." She didn't touch him, trying to feel him out with her eyes.

"Sorry."

"You don't look too good."

"I'm all right."

"You can take the couch."

"You take the couch."

"It's fine. You need it more than I do."

Eren took her by the shoulders and piloted her to the couch. He made her lie down on it and, beside her, sat on the floor. He leaned his head back against the cushions. Across from them, they watched Reiner, motionless, everything all around them quiet and still, eyes stuck to him, held there, as if he were in supine levitation, hovering in front of them.

"Those rumors really hurt him," Mikasa said.

"He'll be all right," Eren said.

"The school outed him before he wanted to be out."

"He can't be outed unless he's the one who does it. It doesn't matter what anybody at school says." Eren closed his eyes. Mikasa watched Eren's face twist, and laid a delicate comfort on his shoulder, not knowing what to say. "It's not the people at school I'm worried about," Eren whispered. "It's his dad."


	12. January

a/n: 7k words

Thank you for reading!

* * *

New Year's Day

Grease coated the cooling griddle plates. Glasses of orange juice waited to be taken. Pancakes wafted buttery battery odors from the dining room table. They each grabbed a plate to fill.

"Should you contact your parents," Hanji said, "and let them know you're here?"

"They don't care," Reiner said.

Mikasa and the others made up their plates and sat around the dinner table. Reiner had taken Ibuprofen and was showered, wearing a clean change of Jean's clothes.

"Thank you for breakfast," Armin said.

"Yes, thank you," Mikasa said.

"Thank you."

Forks and knives hit ceramic.

"I'm sorry for crashing your party last night," Reiner said.

"Let's talk after we eat."

They passed a bottle of Maple syrup. Forks were piled high with pancakes and bacon, shoveled in and loaded. Glasses were drained. Empty used tableware was collected and filed away into the dishwasher.

Levi started. "The first thing that needs to be said is this: You can't be getting behind the wheel, drunk. That's unacceptable. It's a miracle you made it here without hurting yourself or anybody else. If you needed a ride, you should've called Eren or Mikasa."

Reiner sat up straight and nodded. "Yes sir." Then his face did a mass crumbling and every pain slid down his expression at once. He put a hand to his browbone.

"Asshole," Hanji said.

"What?" Levi said.

"No," Reiner said, shielding his eyes. "I'm grateful, that's all."

Levi and Hanji looked at each other, knowing what the other thought. The glass prosthetic stared slightly off as if it could see between the folds of nowhere and everywhere.

"I can't remember much about last night," said Reiner.

"What about that knot on your head?"

"I don't remember."

Levi and Hanji knew again, communicating with each other in silence.

"Maybe it'll come back to you," Levi said, getting up. "Finish your pancakes. I'm about to start the dishwasher."

Sometime later, after the others had gone home, Eren and Reiner sat in the living room, talking. They avoided looking at each other, eyes shifting to the walls, to the patio doors, to the blank television, the ceiling, as they talked, ashamed, maybe even revolted, as if talking about themselves and confiding in each other was like dropping their pants and using the same toilet at the same time.

"My grandpa used to whip me. Burn me alive. _Pop-pop-pop._" Eren snapped his wrist three times. "Sometimes he'd make me take off my clothes and light me up like Christmas." He made a strange laugh, eyes wide and strange. "I started to think he probably hated me for things I couldn't fix."

Eren waited for Reiner to respond. Reiner felt Eren waiting and bumbled around, wanting to say something back, wanting to reveal nothing. Eren spoke again before Reiner did.

"You don't have to comment. I was just saying."

January

It was like Eren drifted up to the retina slowly, unclear at first, surfacing the longer you tried to remember to see him.

In front of Cinderella's castle, they posed for a picture as they had eight years ago, at two feet taller, reworked and reshaped, positioning themselves in the same placement of the past. Pluto ears draped to Eren's shoulders again. The sorcerer hat speared up from Mikasa's head again. Armin wore the same iconic Mickey mouse cap again. After Annie took the picture, they looked at it and felt slightly disoriented, as memories rushed back thoughts and emotions left behind. It wasn't like time-travel.

They waited in line for Space Mountain. Futuristic structures of chrome and red lights sent them into a fantasy science alternate universe of rockets and spacecraft and esoteric beeping switchboards. Scenes changed as they moved down the queue. They inched their way. Twenty minutes. Thirty. Forty minutes passed. Eventually, metal clacks could be heard as trains trundled down the roller coaster tracks. Eren rested on the handrail, arms folded, his head bowed like he was sleeping. Armin and Annie spoke to each other about nothing important. Mikasa ducked, twisted, peering up under Eren's chin. His eyes opened.

"Yes?"

"You're quiet today," she said.

"Ah." Eren picked up his head and rubbed his dull face. "Sorry."

"You're not having fun, are you?"

"No, I am. Waiting's boring. But I'm having fun. Don't worry."

She worried.

Trains rushed down a tunnel. Delighted screams rushed back.

They stepped onto a moving walkway. Windows surrounding them gave out onto a dark galactic recess, bent and warped by concave glass. As it were, they were suspended in the black fathoms of the cosmos. Soon they were buckled in. Attendants waved and sent them off. The train shot straight into the dark. Outer space flushed, cold and exhilarating, over them. The world vanished.

When they got off, their heads were topped by wild hairdos with how they'd been slapped around by momentum and speed, blind, in total darkness. They walked together, laughing, on weak knees, bones buzzing, atoms juddering with energy, alive. Inside their brains, neurological roller-coasters released endorphins and they were happy. At the end of the exit, they raised their faces to a line of mounted screens displaying photos taken mid-ride. The photos changed and rotated to a new wave of riders. They looked. They waited. The photos rotated again.

It took a moment to find theirs.

"Did you know the picture was coming?" Eren said.

"No," Mikasa said.

"How?" he said, grossly offended. "You look too perfect. That's cheating."

They looked at Mikasa sitting next to Eren, smiling perfectly, hair in a perfect rippling sweep.

"But," Eren said, "it's an equally terrible picture of Armin."

They looked at Armin sitting next to Annie, with a flushed sheen and upturned eyes, as if his spirit had ascended, leaving his body.

"It looks like—"

"Don't say it, Eren." Armin brought his hands together. Color crawled up his neck.

"It looks like you enjoyed the ride a little too much," Eren said, saying it anyway. "And I'll die happy if I never ever have to see you make that face again."

"Well," Annie said, and caught Armin by the elbow, "I wouldn't mind seeing you make that face again."

Annie watched Armin flame into a gruesome livid shade of red. Eren smothered Mikasa's ears in his hands and walked her, holding her head, to the exit.

"You're too young for this," he said. "_I'm_ too young for this."

"What?" she said.

"I want to peel off my own skin and boil it. That was agonizing."

"What?"

Eren released Mikasa's ears and they walked out and through the gift shop.

They stopped to get ice cream and swooped plastic spoons into cups, lifting rounds of frozen delight. It was childhood joy compacted into bites, melting in their throats, making their stomachs colder than the winter outside. They shared and tasted and relished. It was a good time.

Eventually, Armin and Annie went ahead, leaving Mikasa and Eren to follow behind. Children smiled, ran around. Strollers were pushed and weaved through crowds. Parents towed their children along by tiny wrists.

"Do you think you'll want kids one day?" Mikasa said.

"No," Eren said.

"Why not?"

"It's not for me." They watched two children, brother and sister, argue passionately and go by. "What about you?"

"I don't know. It depends if I ever find the right person. Sometimes it feels pretty—"

"Hold up." Eren swept his arm out and jutted his chin, directing her eyes. "Armin and Annie went into that arcade." He and Mikasa shifted and slanted off to the right. A bout of people bulged on the sidewalk, then thinned.

"Pretty what?" Eren said, and they returned to their conversation.

"Hopeless," Mikasa said.

"If it's hopeless for you, then I don't know what that means for me." They made it to the arcade. Eren opened the door.

"Thank you."

Mikasa went in. Eren went in behind her. Sounds dinged and chimed; music trumpeted victories and losses. Long tongues of tickets sputtered out of machines.

Eren and Mikasa joined up with Armin and Annie. They stood in front of a popular rhythm game. Annie picked up a guitar-shaped controller and slung on the strap.

"Mikasa used to be good at this," Armin said.

"Let's see how good you are," Annie said.

"You play actual guitar, though," said Mikasa.

"And?"

Eren picked up the other guitar controller and shoved it at Mikasa.

Mikasa shouldered on the strap, already sweating because she was going to lose. "I haven't played in years."

Armin slotted in a few tokens. Annie selected a song. Both players got ready.

"Ready to lose?" Annie said.

"I guess."

Notes traveled down a fret-board-highway. When they reached the end, Annie and Mikasa's fingers hit buttons on a mechanical register, matching the colors to buttons, not thinking about what they were doing.

"You're a hustler," Annie said.

"No."

The guitar solo came. Mikasa went first. An inundation of notes scrolled down the fret board. Her fingers scrambled to hit the buttons on time. Her Rock meter fell. Then it fell some more. The virtual crowd started to boo. Mikasa's fingers drooped from the buttons.

"I told you."

"I still think you're hustling."

It was Annie's turn.

Annie's fret board flooded with notes. Her fingers gushed across the buttons, matching it beat for beat, note for note. The Rock meter throbbed green. She triggered the STAR POWER. The virtual crowd screamed and cheered. She was a virtual Rock Star.

"Keep playing," Annie said.

"I already lost," Mikasa said.

"Game's not over."

Mikasa played until the game finished. Then they hung the guitars back on the holders. Eren laughed and put an arm around Mikasa's shoulders.

"Why the sad face?"

"I lost."

"It was still impressive."

That lessened her disappointment.

"But if my life randomly depends on somebody who can smash buttons to a rock song, I'ma call Annie."

Mikasa shrugged Eren's arm away.

"Do you play the piano?" Annie said.

"No."

"She's lying."

"I can tell," Annie said. "You have piano fingers."

Mikasa looked at her hands.

"I don't know what that means."

"Your fingers are long, and it's the way they move," Annie said. "You can just tell."

At nine o' clock, they raised their amazed faces to the night sky, at a wonder and spectacle. Everyone in the park arrested in time, chins lifted, to watch Disney's fireworks. Fire tore apart the atmosphere and scorched the sky and collapsed again and flared again, flaming for miles. Awe moved in low wordless undertones across the street. Giant fiery dandelions of bright sparkles opened up, spreading, and blew away. Then the entire sky burned up in a hundred explosions, covering them in light as bright as daytime, as the climactic magic to the end came.

"Wow," Eren said.

Mikasa gazed up at him and saw the fireworks as he saw them, on his face, in his eyes. Fire and wonders and miracles.

The sky went dead with dead leaden smoke. Applause swept across the park like a hard sheet of rain. The crowd resurrected. Everyone began moving again.

March

A graphite pencil tip rubbed contours on a blank sheet of sketch paper.

"Are you drawing from memory?" the doctor said.

Mikasa didn't answer. The pencil put down more lines and shapes and shadows.

"So, what else happened when you took your trip out of town? I was told you went to a hotel. Is there anything you'd like to share about it?"

Something vague and sad was coming from the pencil. It didn't come out like she was drawing. It came out like she'd smeared graphite. Two eyes stared out at her. The eyes were vague and soulless, like they'd been staring a long time at a sad gray wall.

"Your parents seem to think something happened at the hotel. It's believed Eren started acting out soon after. What do you think about that?"

January

Sitting on the floor, up against the hotel bed frame, Mikasa moved her head to the music, eyes closed with listening. Annie played her acoustic guitar, using the long fingernails on her right hand to strum. Sitting on the carpet, up against opposite beds, Annie played and Mikasa listened, and they let the music bleed all the way into them.

"We should jam one day," Annie said, "and collaborate."

"I don't know," Mikasa said.

"Why are you so self-deprecating about your music?"

"I stopped playing a few years ago."

"Why?"

"It's hard to explain."

They continued moving their heads, following the music with their bodies.

"You could've roomed with Armin," Mikasa said. "Eren and I would've been fine rooming together."

The music stopped. Mikasa's head stilled. She raised her face, looking at Annie, sitting against the other bed.

"It's not about you and Eren," Annie said. "The only reason I'm not rooming with Armin right now is because I don't want to."

"Why not?"

"I'm always wondering if I like him more than he likes me. I'm not sure where I stand."

"Sometimes Armin can be hard to pin."

Annie set her guitar aside and hugged her knees into her chest. Even after showering, eyeliner smudges clung under her eyes, making her look like she'd had a passionate cry. The AC roared from the vents. They both frosted over in goosebumps.

"When we were in middle school," Mikasa said, "Armin was picked on a lot. I don't know if he told you that already."

"He's implied it before."

Mikasa told Annie about middle school. About the group of girls who used their pretty faces to try to make nice boys cry. To love on them, and make them fall in love, to break them so the girls could laugh at the great prank they'd pulled, making them feel powerful and dominant. How Armin had been cornered by one of these girls, paralyzed, as she slanted to kiss him, leaning in, pretty as anything he'd ever seen, and at the last second, her saying, _Just kiddiiiing, _then her friends appearing, laughing. _Ew_, they said. _He's so gross_, they said. _Did you really think she'd ever kiss _YOU? and Armin, unsurprised and simultaneously devastated, saying, _No, not really. Can I have my glasses back now? I'm nearsighted. _

Annie picked up her guitar again. This time when she played, soft pensive music drifted under the roaring AC. The machine ceased and went quiet. Then Annie stopped too. Sharply she swore: "Stupid cunt." For a second, Annie and Mikasa said nothing. Then they smiled shrewdly across the floor at each other.

"I'm going to switch rooms with Armin."

The shrewd smile rattled off Annie's face. "No, Mikasa."

Mikasa stood.

"Don't, Mikasa. I'm serious."

"It's not about you and Armin," Mikasa said. "I just want to room with Eren." Mikasa held Annie's eyes until she was sure Annie felt all right. Then she left and knocked on the neighboring door. Armin answered.

"Annie wanted me to switch rooms with you."

Armin was stunned. "Did she say that?"

"Yes."

Mikasa went in. Hot vapor and steam spumed from the bathroom. The mirrors were fogged. Drenched towels hung on silver hooks. There was a brisk non-smell and non-identity like all hotel rooms, the neat square pleats of nondescript bed sheets. Armin walked around, considering his belongings, and went into the bathroom and considered more of his belongings, and then he went out, taking none of his belongings with him.

Eren was already lying in bed, closest to the AC and window, facing the concrete city and unsleeping electricity and activity. Mikasa sat on the bed that would've been Armin's.

She looked at Eren, lying shirtless on his side.

"Are you tired?" she said.

"I'm always tired," he said. "But I can't really sleep, either. Did Annie actually want you to switch rooms?"

"Sort of."

He flipped over. "Sort of?"

"She thinks she's going to scare Armin off."

"She doesn't need to walk on eggshells around him. He's not going to dip out on her."

"Yes, I know."

On the TV, men were playing golf at low volume.

"Armin thinks I walk on eggshells," Mikasa said. "Around you."

"Do you?"

"Probably."

"Why? It's not like I'm going to dip out on you." Eren's eyes looked out at her, half his face pillowed. "If you could say anything to me right now, whatever you wanted, what would you say?"

"I don't know."

"Think of something. Anything."

She took her knees into her chest, thinking better and more deeply. "I thought if we got away and did something fun together, it'd make you happy. But you don't look happy at all."

"I enjoyed today. I know I did. I just—couldn't feel it all the way." Eren turned onto his stomach and curled his arms. The pillow puffed and ballooned under his chin. "Once we graduate, everything will be better. I'll be better. If I can get through these next few months, everything will be better."

Mikasa moved to his bed and sat on the edge.

"I think so too."

She touched his back and imagined touching his thoughts with her fingertips, feeling to see what it was like in there. Her fingertips sank, like dipping them into a warm pool.

"I often think about watching you swim that day. It was . . ." Mikasa went backward, seeing Eren flying down the lane, diving in and out, and the span of his arms, and the powerful undulations of leg and limb and water and wings. She touched the wells of muscle, trying to tell him, not knowing how to tell him about the marvel she thought he was.

"That feels nice," he said.

"This?" she said.

"Everything."

January

Winter break was over. It was the first day back at school. A school assembly was held in the gymnasium.

In the middle of the court, the principal stood with a microphone in her hand.

"Grief," she said, "affects each of us differently."

Sitting in the creaky wood bleachers, the student body heard the same old speech. It was a car accident this time. They didn't listen. Finally, they were released to return to class. The day carried on the same as the days always did.

They were all together, walking back to class as a group.

"How's the living situation?" Eren said.

"Levi and Hanji are nice," Reiner said. "But I feel so guilty. Graduation can't come soon enough."

"Hanji and Levi don't mind," Mikasa said. "They both understand hostile home environments. And their door is always open. To any of us."

"It's really generous. I just don't know if I can accept it. I barely know them."

"I told you," Eren said, "stay at my place. My parents won't care."

"Or anybody's," Connie said. "We got'chu, dawg."

They all gave Reiner open looks of invitation and kindliness.

"Thank you. If there's anything I can do for you—"

"Actually," Connie said. "Aren't you tight with the cheer team?"

Sasha whacked him.

"Now I just need to pass Chemistry," Reiner said.

"Do you need help? I can tutor you," Armin said. "It'd just have to be in the mornings before school."

"Really?"

"Yeah. But I'm not on campus Tuesdays and Thursdays, and Eren's my ride."

Faces turned to Eren.

"We can start leaving earlier," Eren said. "Do you have Mrs. Brooke's?"

"No," Reiner said. "I'm not in Dual."

"I wish I was in your class. Every morning, she comes in with this annoying stank-butt attitude. I'm not even exaggerating. It's every morning."

"You're talking about yourself, dipshit," Jean said. "That's literally you."

January

Parents and their art-student sons and daughters meandered the commons. Tonight, the commons had been made into a makeshift art gallery. On a long table were platters of cheeses, fruits, and vegetables; a beverage dispenser was filled with fruit punch.

Annie, Armin, and Eren were appraising Mikasa's colored pencil project. An easel propped it at their sightlines.

"Who is it?" Annie said.

"It looks like Eren," Armin said.

"It's Eren," Mikasa said.

"That's the picture you took," Eren said. "But you changed it."

"Yeah."

"I like it better this way."

"Is it supposed to be some version of uncanny valley?" Annie said. "It's like you have an idea of what you're supposed to be looking at, but when you look at it, it's not it. Eren's eyes would've come out nicely in colored pencil. I'm surprised you omitted them."

"I wasn't thinking too much when I did it."

Her heart was steadily collapsing on itself.

"I like it," Eren said.

"It's original," Armin said.

"I think it's odd."

Her heart rebuilt itself when Eren appreciated her efforts and, together, they roamed the gallery, observing the other artworks.

"I know Annie didn't get it," he said. "But I was dreading seeing my face on that canvas. If anybody else had asked, I would've said no." Their eyes roved the stippled pen artwork. There was a coily octopus done by Historia Reiss. "It might be harder for other people to look at. But you made it easier for me to look at."

They turned down a different table. At the same instant, together, they stopped. Matted on cardstock was a colored pencil portrait of a wolf. Smiles dominated their glowing faces. It was a light and pure happiness and affection. A feeling better than any other feeling. Better, even, than falling in love.

"It's his best work yet," Eren said.

"Yes."

They doted and treasured deeply. Then they continued on in a slow stroll. When they reached the oil paintings, Mikasa's attention was pulled to the right. Eren's was pulled to the left. In a quiet reflection and curiosity, they let their eyes lead them down the table in opposite directions. Mikasa's feet took her and moved her and slowed her.

"Ay, baby girl." Ymir was wearing a tie. She rested an arm on Mikasa's shoulder.

"You're dressed up," Mikasa said.

"Got the drip."

Then Mikasa saw Ymir's locked gaze and Mikasa followed, looking where Ymir was looking, putting her view on an oil painting. Suddenly Mikasa fell and disappeared, standing where she was.

Under a high blue sky, Mikasa sat on a white fence and watched the vast wind move the tall golden grass like ocean tide.

"Does it look familiar to you?" Ymir said. And Mikasa returned, with Ymir's arm resting on her shoulder.

"Yeah. It's like I went there a long time ago."

Both Mikasa and Ymir swung their faces around. Eren gazed thoughtfully at the painting, the familiarity touching at his memory.

"Where's that at?" he said.

"Nowhere," Ymir said. "It's a place from inside my head."

January

It was a cool morning. Reiner wore his lined denim jacket, hands pocketed. Students were transitioning to third period.

"Hey, you're friends with Eren Jaeger, right?"

Reiner paused in his class transition. "Yeah."

"He's in that bathroom tripping or something. I don't know. He's talking to himself. I don't know."

Reiner went into the bathroom. Inside, a low drone of a voice went on, saying nothing understandable in between vague cussing, and Reiner walked past the urinals, going toward it. He pressed on a stall door. It fell open. Eren was on his knees, braced on the toilet, mumbling crazily. Then his throat muscles violently constricted and he gagged and drooled. He spat into the toilet.

"Why are you wet?" Reiner said.

"It's sweat."

"That's _sweat?_ What have you been doing?"

"I'm having a side effect."

"To what?"

"Anxiety medication. Can you hand me some paper towels?"

Reiner did. Eren struggled with his wet shirt, shivering, until it came off his head. Shaking cold, he rubbed the sweat off his body, muscles spasming. Reiner cranked more towels from the machine. It jammed. Reiner jabbed his fingers into the twist-handle and forced it to turn. More paper towels pumped and choked out. The ice-sweat was mopped up, leaving Eren dry but cold. He hugged himself, shaking.

"You need something dry to wear," Reiner said. "I might have something in my Jeep." He started to the door.

_Lockdown Activated._

There was a second of failed comprehension. Then they understood.

Eren's head fell back. He gaped at Reiner. "Ain't nobody said nothing about having no lockdown drill."

"They didn't tell us the last time, either."

"What if it's not a drill?"

"It's probably just a drill."

"What if it's not?"

"It has to be."

They knew it didn't have to be. It wasn't too long ago that nearly twenty high school students had been massacred by a semi-automatic rifle, only a couple hours away. A death-fear took hold. Eren's vision contracted. He lifted his hands, staring at his own panic like he couldn't recognize it and if he were to stare into a mirror, he wouldn't recognize that either. He pinned his fingers down under his eyes. He stuffed his hands in his armpits.

"Calm down, Eren," Reiner was saying. "Even if it's real, you can't panic. Don't panic. Just— Just—"

A pushbar was bashed outside. Somebody had entered building 3. Reiner flew to the door and warily looked out the small peep window. Two figures charged by. Reiner dropped to the ground and shoved his back up against the door. Giant wings of blood flapped inside his ears.

From the impression on Reiner's face Eren knew what it was and dashed over, joining Reiner on the ground, both their backs shoved up on the door, barricading it shut.

Breath rushed in and out their noses. They heard the in-out rush of each other's breath. There were no sounds of gunfire or warfare. It was a silence outside, finished and total. Reiner turned his face and whispered.

"Maybe it's just a drill."

Minutes passed. The death-fear scorched up their energy and withered them and weakened them. Their muscles grew exhausted from prolonged strain. Their minds fogged over from prolonged alertness. Reiner was the first to go out, everything burnt up, and he slumped against Eren.

"It's a drill," he said.

Eren sucked his teeth, knowing it too.

"They even had guys in masks carrying around rifles. They're really going all-out with these things."

"Fuck them," Eren said.

Reiner let his head roll down. Eren tensed. Then he cooled and drained, and slumped too. Resting together, they listened some more to the silence outside, bleeding out the death-fear, muscle by muscle, nerve by nerve. Their bodies were slack delirious heaps of fatigue. They were too tired to be guarded about anything at all.

They returned to New Years.

"It was a belt buckle," Reiner said. "It caught me on back of the head."

"Was that the first time he tagged you?" Eren said.

"No. He's always had a temper. That's why I lived with my mom."

"How come you're staying with your dad?"

"My mom decided to move in with her boyfriend, but he lives in Michigan and I wanted to finish my last year here. We're almost done, you know? It's so close. Maybe I made the wrong choice."

Right now, they could look each other in the eye and not feel strange about it.

"Well, I don't know if it was a good thing for you," Eren said. "But it was a good thing for me that you decided to stay."

Reiner, sunk against the door, had softened his face, the two of them heaped together on the floor like two massive sacks of loose flour. Then Reiner leaned, his hand lifting to cup and frame and hold another still. Eren turned away.

"I need to get up."

Reiner removed his head from Eren's shoulder and let Eren get up and watched Eren take his damp shirt and wrestle into it.

The bathroom door came open. An officer stood in the doorway and spoke into his radio. "Building two bathrooms are clear," he said. Then to Reiner and Eren: "All classroom's have been cleared. You two boys can get on back to class, now. The bell's going to be ringing soon."

"Yes sir."

"That's it?" Eren said. "That's all you got to say? Y'all had guys walking around with guns to make us believe there was a real live-shooter."

Reiner's gut tautened, like he was about to be punched.

"Why y'all do this?" Eren demanded. "What's the benefit?"

"It's to prepare you for the worst-case scenario," the officer said.

"It ain't helping nobody. It's _wrong_."

"Eren," Reiner said. "He's just doing his job."

"This training we do has the potential to save your life," the officer said. "You never know what could happen. Remember what happened at the bank last year?"

Eren remembered what happened at the bank last year. "How's it gonna save us when all the people who want to hurt us are already inside the gates?"

Reiner took Eren calmly by the shoulders. Eren let Reiner keep him calm.

"Son, listen. I don't like this any more than you do. Trust me. Come on, now. You boys need to get on back to class."

The bell rang. Like Pavlov's dogs, students transitioned to their next classes as they were conditioned to do. A few girls had make-up tracks down their faces from weeping. Everybody was ill and somber and mute and fatigued. Even the teachers hadn't known if it'd been a fiction or not, standing at their doors with their face-flesh like stretches of cloth that'd been battered around in the washer for too long.

Reiner and Eren walked in the morosely quiet hallway, morose and somber like everybody else. They were about to diverge. Eren continued on straight down the hall, to the double door.

"Hey. Isn't your class that way?" Reiner pointed.

"I'm not going to class," Eren said. "How can they expect us to go on like normal after what they did?" He bashed the door open. Daylight shrieked around him. "They're fucking crazy."

January

The very next day a hooded boy strode across the senior parking lot with too much purpose. The school resource officer manning the gate eyed, logged, and suspected. When the boy reached him, the officer said to lower his hood.

"Why?"

"School safety."

The hood came down. The officer recognized the face. Eren flashed his ID. The gate was opened and he went in. Most students were already seated in their first period classes. The halls had already emptied. The hood engulfed Eren again when he walked in to first period right at the tail-end of the bell and took his seat in the middle row.

"Take off your hood, Eren."

"Why?"

"Don't ask why. Just do it."

Eren took off the hood.

Mikasa sat two seats behind Eren and knew something wasn't right. Lecture started, then finished. Directions were given. Mrs. Brookes walked the rows, passing out worksheets. Mikasa dove into her work, deafened by concentration, digging at her brain as it heated and became alive with electricity. While walking down the rows, Mrs. Brookes came to a sharp halt. Her clogs snapped together.

"Excuse me," she said. "I thought I told you to take down your hood."

Eren slowly pulled on his hood. It inched off the back of his hair.

"Sit up." Her tone rose. There was a kind of righteous violence to it. "This isn't your living room. It's a college class."

Eren moved marginally in his seat.

Another fifteen minutes of silent work went by. Then, again, their concentration was disrupted.

"_Eren Jaeger_."

Eren was face-down on his desk. His hood covered his head. His worksheet was on the floor. This time Mrs. Brookes snapped her clogs over to his desk and, with her two hands, snatched the hood off his head with that righteous restrained violence. Picking up his face, Eren leaned back and heavily slouched in his seat. Mrs. Brookes, still violent and righteous, snatched the worksheet from the floor.

"It's blank," she said, entirely unamazed.

Eren said nothing, staring emptily at his empty desk space.

The paper crunched in her hands. The class had gone quiet. There was only the sound of finely crushed paper.

"Fine. Sit there. Be a waste of space. I'm certain your mother is extremely proud of you."

Slouched, long and lethargic, Eren sat and stared at the empty plastic desk-surface.

"Your future is directly affected by the choices you make here. You'll never be successful at the rate you're going."

The class was motionless. Eyes watched Eren as he did nothing, staring at his desk. They waited. They anticipated.

"I don't have to put up with your attitude. You might as well go ahead and go to the office."

Waiting interrogative eyes bore down. Nobody moved.

"I'm done with you. I don't even want to have to look at you," Mrs. Brookes said. "Get out of my classroom."

"You trippin'."

Students stirred. Energy picked up. This is what they had been waiting for.

Mrs. Brookes had the look of a woman who'd been slapped. "I beg your pardon?"

"You trippin'. I didn't do nothing." Eren put his hood back on.

Students stirred louder, like a calm stretch of water rippling, something dwelling down a few feet deep, about to come up out of the tide.

"Get out," Mrs. Brookes said. "Get out of that seat right now or you'll be removed from that seat." In more physical violence, Mrs. Brookes seized Eren's belongings and flung them out the door. His backpack thudded outside.

Students dramatically sucked in their breath. Some laughed; Mrs. Brookes was acting a fool, getting all riled up. Some phones were taken out. They recorded as Mrs. Brookes dialed the extension for the front office.

"O-o-o-oh."

"He's about to get it."

It was an excitement, a suspense.

"They're gonna arrest his ass."

"Eren," Mikasa whispered. She saw only the back of his hood. "What are you doing?"

"Eren," Connie hissed. "Get up, man. It don't need to go down like this, dawg. Just go to the office."

"Listen to her," Jean said. "Don't be an idiot."

"Eren."

"Come on, man."

"Do what she says. Stop acting like a dick."

"Get up, Eren. _Please_."

Finally Jean and Connie leapt from their desks and grabbed Eren by the arms, hauling him up, trying to force him to do as he was told. He rose and fell in his chair as they fought to remove him. He summoned pounds and pounds of weight into himself which came from nothing but his own will and might.

"Eren," Mikasa said, starting to feel her eyes water. "Don't make it any worse. Please, _please_—"

The door slammed open. Everybody jolted. An almost palpable wave of authoritative threat came spilling into the room, prickling hair, stiffening muscles.

The officer came in on unhurried authoritative paces. He gripped the front of his belt demonstratively. Connie and Jean fell to their seats. Eyes followed the officer's unhurried advance. He loomed over Eren.

"Get your ass up."

It was perfectly still and silent.

Connie shrank down into his shoulders nervously.

Eren made no movement to do as he'd been ordered to do.

The officer flashed out a hand and seized Eren by the neck. He shoved Eren out of the desk. The desk violently crashed on its side. A girl cried out.

"What's the matter with you?" the officer said. On the floor, Eren rolled onto his hands, getting ready to push himself up. "I thought you wanted to act all big and tough. Come on, now. Get up, tough guy." The officer caught Eren by the back of the neck again, "I said, GET UP," and dragged him viciously up from the floor.

There was no excitement from this. Only dread.

The two adults wanted Eren to be hurt and humiliated because he was a bad kid. A waste. A failure. There was a lesson to be learned, and they would deliver it.

Eren's arms were wrangled behind his back. Eren let himself be pushed and shoved and twisted and tugged, his head slumped over on his neck. He was a string puppet with no movement of his own, moving only by the punishing movements of the officer.

Handcuffs were slapped on Eren's wrists. The whole time, Eren made no sound, his neck clutched in the officer's thick hand.

"This is what happens when parents act soft." The officer spoke low, talking to Eren, not meant to be heard. It was too quiet not to hear him. "If you'd been whipped right, you wouldn't of turned out like this. If you were my kid, I woulda torn you up properly a long long time ago."

The officer jostled Eren to the door. Mrs. Brookes held it open. They passed in front of her. She had a singular attitude of disdain, disgust, contempt. Eren was like strings, head bent, letting himself be jostled and moved, step after step.

Jean and Connie took the upended desk and set it gently back on the legs. Then they went over to Mikasa.

"It'll be okay," Jean said quietly, looking back over his shoulder. Mrs. Brookes was still outside, face hardened in a contemptuous mask. "They'll call in witnesses and investigate. The worst that'll probably happen is he'll be suspended for a few days. It'll be okay. So don't cry."

Mikasa watched her hands rattle in front of her.

"That ain't right," Connie said.

"If Eren would've done what he was supposed to in the first place, he wouldn't be in handcuffs right now," Jean said. "He came in wanting to start something. You could tell as soon as he stepped foot on campus."

"It's not that Eren didn't do anything wrong," Mikasa said. "But Mrs. Brookes did nothing right. She treated him like a thug. So that's what he acted like."

The door closed. Mrs. Brookes' shoes snapped inside. Jean and Connie darted back to their seats.

# # #

Footsteps outside the door came and went. Voices, too. Come and gone. The metal was on him, sharp. They'd left Eren's hood alone, his face sunk in the black gulf of it, him sitting in a cushioned armchair, hands twisted. His hearing picked up a woman's voice, growing louder, outside the dean's office.

"Eren has always been an excellent student. Yes, he sleeps in class. But he does his work and keeps his grades up, and he's always polite with me. Do you know what his GPA is? Do you know he's ranked in the top twenty of his graduating class? His academics excel. This—this _outburst_—is not normal behavior. It's him reaching out. And if we don't figure out what it is that he needs, we're going to lose him, and I don't want to lose him. Maybe if he speaks to the counselor . . ."

The door opened.

"Hello, Eren. I've come to talk to you, to try to understand. I don't believe this is the person you are or who you want to be."

Mrs. Ral saw Eren's upper body moving.

"Eren, are you all right?"

The small pad of Mrs. Ral's shoes on the carpet was behind him. Then the chair next to him filled with her. The side of his eye saw her hand reach at him. He tensed his shoulders around his ears. Slowly, softly she took his hood down off his head. A frozen twisted thing in him thawed a little. His eyelids fixed shut.

"Now I can see you," she said, "and I see someone who is not all right."

Needles of pain pricked and bled into Eren's face.

She laid her soft hand on his back. "There's a lot you want to say. You can say it to me. I only want to understand."

Eren's teeth chewed his bottom lip, feeling the needles bleeding all the way into his face.

"Eren?" she said. "Will you say something?"

March

It was visiting hours.

Mikasa had a visitor.

"There was too much," she said. Her voice was hoarse and unused. "How could I save him from everything from every direction at once?"

"It was a choice he made, Mikasa. It had nothing to do with anyone other than himself." Armin sat across from her so they could look at each other, which they did and did deeply. "He committed to it long before any of us could say anything. Hanging out with us again was never about reconnecting."

"No," Mikasa said. "That can't be true."

"Will you come home, please?" Armin rubbed his face and felt how sad it was. "My grandpa's not doing well and I don't think I can handle this on my own. I'm grateful for all Annie does, but she's not you. Will you start eating again and talk to the doctors like how you talk to me?"

"I'm sorry. I don't have anything to say to anyone unless it's to you or Eren."

"Eren's gone, Mikasa."

"He's not."

The muscles in Armin's face trembled and everything was sad and unbearable. Mikasa, he knew, was totally deluded with grief.

"I'm not deluded," she said.

"I didn't say you were," he said.

"You didn't have to." Her face was bone and emptiness, with eyes that blinked and remained open too long, and lost moisture and shine, dulling into glass. She blinked. Then she took his hands that rested on the table and covered them up in her cold bone-fingers.

"There's this old stuffed bunny rabbit in my room," she said. "It has a hole above its tail. Can you poke around in it to see if there's a note hidden inside?"

"A note? Why would a note be there?"

"It's just a feeling I have."

"They searched Eren's room, the entire house, everywhere they could think of. He didn't leave anything."

Mikasa's eyes were so open and blind, staring, like she was leaving her body behind, travelling to other places.

"When I was a little girl, I used to hide my secrets inside that old toy. Eren found out about it and never told me until that night after the fair. If you could look and see. There might be something."

"Where is it in your room?"

Armin clasped her bone-fingers.


End file.
